


Double Stake or Split

by cataclysm_of_the_masses



Category: The Masked Singer (Australia TV)
Genre: Complete, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Frilly is a mood, Hurt/Comfort, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Panic Attacks, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Texting, featuring: Bushranger not understanding how to fake said relationship, formatting is hard, look they're getting along, overprotective Bushy, this fandom will crucify me, we're all suckers for that trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cataclysm_of_the_masses/pseuds/cataclysm_of_the_masses
Summary: This isn't a story about how a pretty and smart girl falls head-over-heels for a tough football player with a soft side or some shit like that. If you wanted that, you wouldn't be here.This is a story about how one of the objectively worst people in the world has to deal with a morally bankrupt royal who's rigging one of the stupidest things to rig. This is a story about a criminal who blows holes through people who want her dead and a story about a monarch who's pulled the bounty from that criminal's head. But more than that, this is a story about two girls doing what they have to in order to stay afloat.Don't expect rainbows and sunshine.
Relationships: Bushranger (The Masked Singer Australia) & Frillneck (The Masked Singer Australia), Bushranger (The Masked Singer Australia)/Queen (The Masked Singer Australia), Frillneck (The Masked Singer Australia)/Wizard (The Masked Singer Australia)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. Partie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the show.

Through her helmet, Bushranger glares at the guards that push her into the throne room. She falls to the floor, cursing the handcuffs that hold her back as she glowers up at the throne.

"Wonderful," the Queen smiles, waving the guards off. She steps down to Bushranger as the outlaw fiddles with the cuffs, attempting to break them. "Nice to meet you," she introduces herself.

 _What a fucking idiot,_ Bushranger mutters in her head. _Huge skirt, huge dress, tiny waist - a tarred camel in a corset._ "Get on with it," she grits through clenched teeth.

The Queen chuckles. "You believed I wanted you hanged? If I did, I would have had you executed years ago." She smirks. "Luckily for you, dear, you're the best assassin I've met."

Under her helmet, Bushranger furrows her brow. _So this is a deal, huh?_ "You can say that," she grins, the familiar expression of rightful anger and warped protectiveness obscured.

The Queen nods. "It would be such a shame to let such a valuable ally fall through the cracks," she explains. "I offer you this - I will spare you, but on the condition that you work for me. Can you sing?"

"Can I _what?"_ Bushranger shakes her helmet, not quite sure where this was headed. "Sing? I shoot people."

The Queen sighs to this. "That much is _clearly_ apparent. I'm asking if you _sing._ See, there's a competition coming up... Have you heard of _The Masked Singer?"_

"I don't watch TV for people with PMS," Bushranger rolls her eyes. "It on Hallmark or TLC?"

Queen's facial expression is one the criminal will treasure for years - it's a _delightful_ mix of _Off with her head_ and _This wreck is my best chance._ "Network 10, if you're wondering," she snaps. "Now, I'm in the competition and I expect to win it."

"You're sayin'?" Bushranger drawls.

"I want you to assure it."

"You want me to rig a singing show. _That's_ my test." She didn't know the tarred camel was _this_ inbred to think of such a stupid idea.

"Would you rather be my new chandelier?" Queen exhales sharply.

A pause - it was either this lunacy or death. And if she had her guns...

"Yeah, I'll do it."

"Excellent."

So that explains why a wanted criminal is sitting next to a monarch in a waiting room. Bushranger slouches in her seat, staring at the ceiling. Around her, many characters wait patiently for their turns - she spots a Wizard whacking a Puppet on the head with his staff while a Goldfish swishes her tail. "Your Majesty Queen?" A producer calls out, and Bushranger's new employer stands up, shuffling over for the auditions. The criminal sighs sharply through her helmet, closing her eyes.

 _Knock, knock, knock._ Bushranger shifts in the chair, opening an eye. A lizard of some sort is tapping on the helmet. "Hey buckethead," he quips.

"The fuck you want," she mutters, glaring through the _"bucket"_ at the lizard.

He shrugs. "You been out yet? I'm Frillneck." The Frillneck extends a scaly hand, and Bushranger tentatively shakes it with her gloved one.

"Bushranger. Yeah, that Bushranger."

She expects a knee-jerk reaction, but she doesn't get it. Frillneck flops into the seat where Queen was sitting, crossing his legs. "I'll call you Bushy. Less of a mouthful."

"Go for it, man," Bushy rolls her eyes under her helmet.

Frillneck grins, his frills coming up around his face. "You can call me Frilly. Think you'll get in?"

Bushy snorts at that. "About as likely as a cactus." She tips her head back, pleased at the dull _clank_ the helmet makes on the backpiece.

As a response, Frilly points with a thumb at a literal Cactus walking into the tryouts. "Sorry I'm late!" she exclaims.

"Maybe I have a chance, then," Bushranger shrugs.

Frillneck laughs. "I don't doubt it!" He looks up as the Queen steps out of the audition room. "Yo, Queenie!"

Bushranger bites her lip to stifle a laugh as Queen glares at Frillneck. He's called next, likely a conscious decision by the producers, and then it's her turn. Frilly sticks out his fist as she walks past him.

 _Why'd he stop the punch?_ Within a second, she's knocked him to the ground, hand on the gun at her side. "Don't try anything," she growls, even as she _feels_ the stares of everyone around them.

Frilly blinks once, then twice, then bursts into laughter. "Oh my - Bushy, do you know what a _fistbump_ is?"

"Something I'm too old to understand?" she grumbles, which only makes the Frillneck even _more_ amused. He opens his mouth to explain, but the producer calls for Bushranger again. She stands, shaking her head, and heads after the man wearing black.

The panel of four begin with asking Bushy a few questions about her name, why she decided to join the show, and so on; she answers curtly, unamused. _They didn't know her?_ "So what will you be singing today?" one asks.

Bushranger blinks, shaking her head under her helmet. She runs the gamut of possibilities, then shrugs. "Uh, _Waltzing Matilda?"_

"Staying true to your character," the judge comments with an approving nod. "Go on."

The song starts playing as Bushy inhales softly. Gripping her microphone tightly, she begins. _"Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong under the shade of a coolibah tree, he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled, you'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me..."_ As the song goes on, she begins swinging around the stage, hopping around as she's seen pop stars do. The final notes are marked with a finger-gun. (She doubts they want to see her actual gun.)

 _They're clapping?_ Bushranger slides the mic back into its stand, furrowing her brow under her helmet. _Is this some "everyone gets a trophy" shit?_

"You can head out now," a judge states, grinning goofily. "We'll call you all back later."

Bushy shrugs to herself, waving and spinning on her heel. "So much class," another judge whispers to the panel, and Bushranger stifles a laugh.

She spends the next three hours sitting next to the tarred camel, who's reading some sort of fashion magazine. Frillneck is watching her from across the room; it's pitifully obvious because he's made two holes in _Time_ and is staring at her through them. Yeah, Bushy would never have him as part of her gang - if she ever had one.

She's almost dozed off when everyone is called to the auditorium again. Bushy stands, brushing off her chestplate, then follows Queen to the back. Everyone's lined up like a witness is going to come in and point them guilty. _They're so nervous about something so stupid._ The host guy, Usher or something, clears his throat.

"Thank you for attending the Masked Singer Season 2 tryouts," he begins, obviously reciting from memory. "Unfortunately, we only have 12 spots, so we had to let some amazing talent go. If you didn't get in, you can try again for Season 3."

 _Get on with it._ Bushy rolls her eyes.

"I am proud to announce our Groups A and B. In Group A, we have: Goldfish! Puppet! Queen! Echidna! Dragonfly! And Frillneck!" Usher-Host-Man claps his hands as the six step forward, all clearly elated.

"Now, in Group B, we have: Sloth! Wizard! Kitten! Hammerhead! Cactus!"

 _That Cactus got in? Huh._ She's vaguely aware of Hostman's long pause here as the five step up beside the Group A contestants, and she'd be lying if she said it wasn't affecting her. She'd need to find a lie into the studio...

"And Bushranger!"

 _What?_ Bushy's head spins as she steps up in between Queen and Hammerhead. _I didn't even stack the vote..._

"Remember, this is just the beginning of your journey!" The host smiles at the losers.

"It's not fair!" yells someone behind them. Bushranger glances back, raising an eyebrow at the Koala, who crosses his arms. "You're going to let a _criminal_ onto the show? She nearly killed Frillneck! What, you wanted a _shock_ twelfth place?"

"Yeah, yeah," she snaps at him, desperately wanting him to shut up. "The eucalyptus trees are out back. Try not to get caught in a fire."

Koala laughs, even as he's escorted off by the black-clad guards. "I can't wait to see you go home first round," he lobs back. "You won't make it far. You're not the type to."

Bushranger can _feel_ her arms shaking; if she were in any other situation she'd have nailed the sore loser with three headshots and one to the groin for good measure. Queen lays an ebony hand on her shoulder. "Don't listen to him. He's trying to get you to do something rash."

"Yeah," she agrees, offering the monarch a smile from under her helmet. "...Yeah." Bushy sighs, unclenching the fists she wasn't aware she had.

The Usher clears his throat. "Are we ready to continue?" He receives a dozen nods and promptly hums in satisfaction. "Alright. Group A will be performing the next three Mondays, Group B the next three Tuesdays. Each week, the judges vote off a loser from each group. After we get down to three on each group, we will merge and hold performances Monday and Tuesday to whittle down to four, then the next two Mondays after that. One will knock out the fourth-placer and the other is the final. I know all of you want to get there, so give it your all. Any questions?"

Frillneck raises his hand. "Can we watch the other group's performances?"

Hostman shakes his head. "That's prohibited."

"What?" Queen's shock is audible - she stumbles a half-step back, looking to Bushranger.

Incredibly put on the spot to find a half-decent excuse, Bushy looks up, staring straight at Usher. "You - you mean I can't watch my girlfriend perform?" _Oh, what the FUCK did she just do... Hopefully, the tarred camel would know how to react._

"Your - " The host stops for a second.

"You can't tell anyone about this!" Queen shakes her head energetically to prove the point. "My public image would be ruined..." _She's not a half-bad actor, huh._

Hostman looks between the two, confused, then seems to realize something and smiles slightly. "Of course. Don't worry about it." _Slimy cunt._ On the bright side, Queen lets out an invisible sigh and Frilly pumps a fist.

The bright side did not last long. Bushranger grips the wheel even tighter, glaring at the rearview mirror at her passenger, who was taking up all three back seats and still had the audacity to complain. "Let's get some shit straight, okay?" The criminal snaps. "I ain't here outta the _goodness of my heart_ or any of that shit. I'm fucking here because I like the fact that my heart is beating in my chest. That's _it._ I am very much ready to lie my way into helping you, even if that involves fucking you. By the way, ground rule - absolutely _no_ fucking. Hell no."

Queen humphs dramatically, crossing her arms. "I wasn't the idiot who came up with the _stupid_ idea that we were _dating!_ Who's going to buy that?"

"Host cunt did," Bushy shrugs, "So it worked well fucking enough, eh? And besides, if _you_ didn't open your damn _mouth_ we wouldn't have _had_ to start this!"

"That is _no way_ to talk to me!"

"Does me crashing the car into a fucking tree speak _Entitled Cunt?"_

Queen opens and closes her mouth a few times like a fish gasping for air. Bushy nods, her helmet clanking on her chestplate. "Yeah, I fucking thought so. Where were we? No fucking? Fuck, I don't want you within six _feet_ of me... Okay. Just do whatever you think is natural enough, I guess? I don't know! I don't have the time to get my heart broken." _Again._ "You know how the schmucks act on Hallmark?"

Queen exhales slowly. "I don't - "

"Yeah, you do, now answer the damn question," Bushranger grates.

She smirks under the helmet at the monarch's glare. "A lot of handholding, kisses, the lucky girl being _saved_ by the guy..." This earns a snort from Bushy. "PDA."

"PETA?"

"PDA," Queen repeats. "Public displays of affection."

"Aw, _fuck,"_ Bushranger whines, slamming her head back on the headrest.

"You made the excuse," Queen offers, as if _that_ fucking helps any.

 _"You_ got us into the position where I had to make it," Bushy retorts. "So can it. I'm trying to think." She sighs, pulling up to the castle. "I'll be honest - I ain't got a clue how to make this shit believable."

"Everyone's different?" Queen offers.

"Yeah," Bushranger chuckles, _"You're_ fucking different." She parks, hopping out of the Queenmobile and pulling the door open for... Well, as much as it sounded like Bushy had become the protagonist of some sort of shitty Japanese wife-collecting game, the closest thing she could come up with to describe her current relationship with the monarch was _girlfriend-in-training._

It's exactly as bad as it sounds, but for different reasons.

Somehow, Queen manages to scoot her tarred camel ass out of the car. (Bushranger cites this as conclusive evidence that miracles exist.) "That's why you love me though," she quips back, and that's _not_ fucking _fair_. Bushy's the one who's supposed to have all the comebacks, not this hack.

She rolls her eyes, exhaling sharply as she clicks her tongue. "Whatever," is the best she can come up with. _Fucking lame, Bushranger. Get a grip._

Without waiting for Queen, she walks inside, headed straight for her room. A glare at a guard who thinks he can stop her is enough for him to reconsider and step back into place as she slides past him, opening the door to the bedroom and locking it behind her, slamming back on it. _Fuck._

Bushy slides down, ending up seated with her back on the door, cape splayed out on the floor. "Fucking hell, Rain," she mutters to herself. She looks up at the laptop sitting on the bed. It was a necessary gift from Queen; otherwise, it'd be impossible to actually rig votes. Bushy had some experience with hacking, given the fact that she's a well-known and wanted criminal, but it was mostly limited to brute-forcing her own passwords and disabling her phone's tracking. Hence, she'd had to spend the last few weeks learning how to break into systems and screw with them. A good skill to have, and if she got to live because of it, even better.

Bushranger stands, dusting off her cape, and walks to her bed. She's just sat down when there's a knock at the door. "The fuck you want?" She taps her foot, thoroughly annoyed.

"Do you know what song you're going to sing?"

_Fuck._

"I'm supposed to know?" Bushy sighs, standing and pacing to the door, unlocking it and slamming it open - the satisfying ricochet seems to cause Queen some sort of internal pain by the way she twitches. The tarred camel has changed into a much shorter skirt, but that doesn't change the fact that she looks like a cunt. _Cunt._

Queen shrugs, stepping inside. "It's probably better to. If you want to get far, you need to know your lyrics."

Bushy grunts to that. "No shit, Sherlock. What you up to?"

The monarch sits on Bushranger's bed, crossing her legs. "I was thinking about _Blinding Lights."_

"That about epilepsy?"

Queen sighs. It's a good thing Bushy has her helmet on; otherwise, her... Acquaintance? Yeah, let's stick to that. Her _acquaintance_ would see her shit-eating grin under the metal. "No," Queen tips her head back. "Does it even matter?"

"Not really, as long as you don't lose," she shrugs, then pauses. "You think I can get away with singing _Happy Birthday?"_

Queen's deadpan is another one for the picture books - Bushranger wheezes, doubling over in laughter. "And next week you'll do the alphabet? I thought you were a shrewd crook, not a blundering moron."

Bushy looks up. "Unlike some people, I'm not terribly musically-inclined, okay?" She grins under the helmet. "But if you have any ideas, I'll hear them out."

The monarch's eyes flicker up, then down, and Bushranger gets the awkward feeling that she's being scanned. She crosses her arms over her chestplate, shifting her weight to one leg and invisibly raising an eyebrow. Queen shrugs. "You could try _Bills?"_

"I don't pay them. Next?"

"Hear me out, though," the royal smiles slightly. "It's a good, energetic ditty. You can't mess it up."

"Like I would," Bushy snorts. _You won't make it far, you're not the type to,_ Koala's words ring in her head. "Show me it." She flops on the bed behind Queen, watching her through the slot in her helmet. Miss Congeniality leans over to the computer, searching for the song in question and playing it. After it ends, Queen turns back to look at Bushy, an eyebrow raised in a silent question. She grunts in response. "Good enough for me, I guess."

"You can ask the stage crew to set up a saloon and perform during a mock robbery!" Queen exclaims. "And even pretend to shoot someone!"

Bushranger rolls her eyes. "I forgot you had a kink for design," she grins.

"I can have you killed at any moment," the royal reminds the criminal.

"Quickdraw, bitch," Bushy replies seamlessly.

"Till death do us part?"

"God damn it, I _don't_ want to fucking be attached to you any more than I need to," she groans. "Can you let it rest?"

"You started it," Queen shrugs.

"You're bringing it up like a toddler," Bushy hums. "We'll deal with it. You done?"

The monarch stands up, rocking forward onto her toes. "That I am. I'll see you in a bit." With that, she leaves Bushranger, who's more than happy to see her gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, my fingers slipped-


	2. Talon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 1 is as Week 1 goes; a faux pas leads to some "quality" "bonding" time.

A week of singing into a balled fist, a week of grabbing passwords and leaving backdoors for herself. "You ready?" Bushy calls up. She's standing by the door, leaning on the doorframe and glaring up at the mezzanine.

"Just one minute!" Queen replies, head poking out of the bathroom. "I need to make sure my dress is secure."

"I'm going to have to harness you down like an elephant on a train?" Bushranger asks, rolling her eyes.

To this, Queen lets out an annoyed huff, stepping out. She's wearing the wide-ass skirt again, impeding her movement every which way. "Ready," she proclaims.

"You forced to wear that?" Bushy glances up, then down. "How're you even gonna move?"

Queen chuckles. "I don't have to. My vocals will do the work."

"Okay then," Bushranger shrugs, opening the door. She hides a chuckle as Queen steps _sideways_ through the door and waddles like a lost duck trying to find her mother to the car. She shimmies into the backseat, somehow, as Bushy starts the engine. "You sure you ready? Competition's stiff."

"I _know_ I am," Queen replies, crossing her arms. "Why wouldn't I be?"

They spend the rest of the ride in silence; Bushy idly wonders if the DvD screensaver in Queen's head is bouncing around and looking for a corner. She parks at the studio, making sure to jerk forward just after Queen takes off her seatbelt. Say what you want about criminals, but their sense of _schadenfreude_ is extremely strong.

The monarch glares at her and she grins lackadaisically under her helmet. "We're here."

"I can tell." The frostiness only makes Bushy even more happy. She practically prances out, opening the door for Queen and offering her hand. The royal takes it with a smile that's so clearly plastered on, it's hysterical.

"Give it your all, darlin'," Bushranger tips her helmet slightly to give the impression of a proud demeanor. Queen rolls her eyes, shuffling towards the door, which Bushy strides over to confidently and opens for her, ignoring the glower coming from the taller woman as she passes her shorter companion. They wind through a long hallway before ending up at the contestants' lounge. Bushranger had tested all the couch cushions when Usher-Host-Man was explaining the snack bar to the others, so she knew that the perfect seat was smack-dab in the corners of the U-shaped beige sectional. Luckily, only one was taken. The Echidna seemed to have the backbone of a chocolate éclair, though, as he was scooted as far into the corner as possible, quills meticulously brushed atop the cushions so as not to cause any property damage. _Laaaame_.

Bushy glances around the others. Goldfish is chatting with Dragonfly on one of the ends. Puppet's telling Echidna a joke, sitting next to him with his wooden legs dangling. Frillneck's leaning back on the couch in the seat next to the corner; he jumps up, waving to the two new arrivals. "We kept a whole end open for the dress," the lizard quips with a wry grin.

Bushranger bursts out laughing at that, falling into the empty corner of the couch. The expression on Queen's face seals the deal as she humphs in a better-than-thou manner before promptly taking a seat, the dress's poofiness staking claim to two cushions. "It takes up the whole backseat," the criminal divulges.

"It's called _fashion,_ dear, and you wouldn't know it if it hit you in the face with a telephone pole," Queen retorts.

Frillneck rubs an eye as he chuckles. "Yeah, Bushy," he patronizes. "Black's in, haven't you heard?"

"Only an _icon_ deviates from the colors of the season," Bushranger shifts, tucking her legs under herself.

"Or an idiot," Queen supplies before looking up as Usher walks in.

The host claps his hands, smiling at the septet. _Slimy fucking cunt._ "Is everyone ready? Even though this is only the first performance, you have to make a great impression. Nothing's more embarrassing than leaving first!" Echidna seems positively _petrified;_ honestly, Bushy can't blame him. "We'll have three face-offs: Goldfish versus Puppet, Queen versus Echidna, and Dragonfly versus Frillneck. The loser of each faceoff will be sent to risk, and the least-favorite will be eliminated. Sound good?" Usher earns six nods and a hard ignore from Bushranger and takes this as his cue to start the show. "Goldfish, you're up first!"

The fish stands after a dazed second, following Usher out to the stage. The television on the wall turns on as all the contestants quiet down to listen in and assess the risk their opponents pose. Bushy glances around to make sure she's not being watched, then unlocks her phone as Goldfish begins. _"One more drink of one more Bacardi..."_ She's good, evidently trained, and Bushranger finds herself humming along to the song as she checks to make sure her back door to the voting system is open. It is. Great.

She turns off her screen as the exhilarated Goldfish returns, smiling as she flops onto the couch. "Hopefully I don't get eliminated," she mutters as Puppet is called to the stage.

"I doubt it," Bushy hums. "You were _really_ good." Goldfish smiles wider to that, swishing her tail in silence as Puppet begins.

...Aw, shit. _"Lord almighty, I feel my temperature rising..."_ Even Goldfish seems to know she's lost, exhaling as she closes her eyes and leans back. Bushranger purses her lips under her helmet, watching the Puppet try to control his limbs with varying degrees of success while belting out his Elvis song. _He's gonna make it far,_ her subconscious tells her, and she trusts it. It's never been wrong.

Soon enough, Puppet returns, making it Queen's turn to go. "Kick ass out there!" Bushy calls, waving her off. Despite not seeing it as the royal shuffles away, Bushranger knows she's probably pissed at the remark delivered in her trademark fashion; she derives an ounce of satisfaction from it.

And then the song begins. Bushy recognizes it vaguely from her car's radio, but this _definitely_ did not sound like that. A lot more opera-like. She taps her foot, trying to find the words for it; when Queen hits the low note, she knows. _Amazing._ Her control and range make Bushranger wonder why she was afraid to lose. Unlike Goldfish and Puppet, she didn't even have to _move_ outside of a few gestures with her arms. Perhaps the breathiness could be worked on, or maybe it was just a stylistic decision? Bushy's not the type to know that answer, though. What she _does_ know is that that Echidna is toast as soon as he steps on the stage.

Queen struts back into the lounge as Bushranger perks up, shifting into a less laid-back position. "Attagirl," she grins under her helmet. The monarch chuckles, reaching up to adjust her tiara as she resumes her former two-seat spot. Echidna shuffles off, already defeated. The first few notes of _Faith_ fill the air and Bushy deems it incredibly mediocre. Yeah, maybe he can sing an okay ditty, but it's not something she'd buy. Echidna returns in about the same state of dead-inside-ness that he exited with, marking the beginning of the final two.

Dragonfly hops up off the couch, grinning as her wings flutter in excitement. She skips over to the stage entrance, steps onto the flower set up in the middle of the stage, and begins. _Not bad,_ Bushy decides, _but not my style. Too sappy and romantic._ Taking a quick glance to the side at Queen, she knows this is the type of performance her acquaintance would enjoy. Soon enough, Dragonfly comes back. Frillneck rolls onto the floor before pulling himself up and strutting onstage like he doesn't give a fuck. _Attaboy._

From the first notes, Bushranger knows this is her type of song. She makes a mental note to find it so she can play it on max volume the next time she robs a bank. The lizard sure knows how to throw a party, eh? She suppresses a snicker as he (basically) calls himself a bad girl, the cube of lights around him spinning as he hops off it. Then his frills extend upwards, he kicks into high gear, and it's over for Dragonfly. Frilly returns to the lounge, knowing full well that he's bested her. Despite everything being clear as daylight for Bushy, they're still made to wait. She checks her phone, verifying Queen's winning margin, then shuts it off again, sliding it in her pocket.

Something grabs her hand.

Bushranger instinctively jerks away, pulling back into the corner, hand reaching for her pistol - then, she spots Queen's face, the veneer of concern pretending to hide her annoyance. "...I'm really nervous..." she confesses, looking at her shorter companion with the expression Bushy _knows_ to be the one that's contemplating signing her death warrant.

Aw, _shit..._

"You think you're gonna lose?" she replies, raising an eyebrow.

_ They're staring. Do something. Do something! _

"I doubt it. But if it makes ya feel better..." Bushy tentatively offers her hand again. It's been a long time since it's been filled like this, satin sliding along leather to lace delicately in between. She offers a squeeze - judging by Queen's attempt not to flinch, she probably fucked that up too. _Great._

Just as it seems _utterly_ hopeless, Usher-Host-Man slides in like a fucking snake in the bush, looking around. "Results are in!" he announces with a smile that's just _slightly_ too wide to not be enjoying their collective pain. The six Group A members stand, Queen slipping out of Bushranger's grip, and troop to the stage once more. She sighs, watching the screen through half-open eyes, and isn't at all surprised to see Echidna go home. The other five return and resume their positions. Frillneck's poured himself an overflowing bowl of popcorn from the snack bar and is making it everyone's business, loudly crunching kernel after kernel. Dragonfly and Goldfish each have a small paper cup of pretzels while Puppet's chewing on a few chips.

"You sure you don't want anything?" Frilly mumbles around his current mouthful of popcorn.

Bushranger shrugs. "Yeah, I'm cool. We had a big breakfast." She doesn't miss the slight drop in Queen's shoulders at the excuse. _She fucked it again, huh?_

He smiles, tapping his fingers on the bowl. "I was thinking we could have a little vote in between ourselves on who the best performer of the night was. Obviously, we can't choose ourselves. I'll start - I really enjoyed _Burning Love."_

Queen nods. "Dragonfly's _True Colors_ was very nice. I suppose that'd be my favorite."

Dragonfly chuckles at the compliment. _"Post Malone_ was super fun. I liked it a lot."

Goldfish glances to Frillneck. "My pick would be _Bang Bang,"_ she shrugs.

"Does that mean I'm the tiebreaker?" Puppet mumbles.

"Get on with it," Bushy rolls her eyes, snapping her fingers. She steals a glance at Queen and can tell the pleasant smile's wide.

Puppet nods, thinking. "I say _Bang Bang_ as well."

Frilly pumps a fist, grinning. "That means I won the episode!"

Bushy bites her lip, stymieing the urge to divulge that, by winning by the largest margin, Queen would probably be deemed the winner by any official means. But she doesn't have access to the numbers, she reminds herself. Crossing her arms, she looks over to the monarch again. "For what it's worth, you killed out there," she offers, hoping to lighten the blow a bit.

"Yeah," Goldfish chimes in. "I'm sure you're everyone's second place!"

Bushranger doesn't need to be an expert in reading people to know that's a massive insult. She notes the subtle shifting of the dress as Queen recrosses her legs.

A long moment of silence falls over the group. Frilly breaks it. "We could grab a bite to eat, maybe?"

Queen shakes her head. "I don't think we've got the time. Royal business and all..." She reaches up to swipe a lock of black hair back behind her ear.

"Aw," Frillneck pouts. "Maybe next time?"

"You guys can go and have fun?" Bushy offers, catching a soft exhale from the monarch.

Puppet nods. "I'm down if you guys are." Goldfish offers a thumbs-up to this.

Dragonfly grins, standing. "Seems like a plan!"

Bushranger smiles under her helmet, hopping up. "I'll see you all next week?"

"You bet," Frillneck chuckles, frills extending upwards.

"A little help here, dear?" Queen offers an apologetic glance at Bushy, who pivots on her heel. Yeah, the dress was a _horrible_ choice - the metal decorations had caught on the couch's material, causing Queen to be unable to pull herself up without risking damage to the skirt.

"I gotcha," she nods, not giving a fuck about the skirt or the couch. In two strides, she stands in front of her acquaintance; then, Bushy leans close to hook her elbows under Queen's shoulders before pulling back. With a satisfying _pop,_ she detaches from the cushion, falling onto the criminal, who takes a single, unplanned step back to catch her, shifting her weight to balance it out. _The skirt's not as heavy as it looks._

Behind them, Goldfish giggles. "You - you look like a beached _whale,"_ she gasps out between fits of laughter as Bushranger lets go of Queen. "Glub glub," she adds, tipping her head back.

There's something off in Queen's eyes, Bushy notes. They're trying to focus on the slot in her helmet but they've got the element of staring _through_ it. She's familiar with that - for the longest time, she'd be greeted with that same sight from her reflection. It's not Queen's ordinary return-fire expression, it's one that's given up on the conversation. They should probably go before it gets worse.

_Why the fuck does she care?_ Doesn't she want to fire a round or six into this cunt's brain stem and watch her convulse to death on the floor before looting her castle and disappearing into the bush again?

She needs to wait a few more rounds to pull it off, Bushy tells herself as she straightens up. "We'll see you guys next week," she waves, latching onto Queen's wrist and pulling her behind as she heads back through the hallway to the parking lot. Spotting the Queenmobile, as she's dubbed it, Bushy fishes in her pocket for the key and unlocks the car, hopping back onto her driver's seat. "Thank me later, get fucking inside before I drive off without you. You know I will."

The royal chuckles, some of her humor evidently having returned as she slips into the backseat, fastening her seatbelt. "The icing on the cake of our dysfunctional relationship," she mutters.

"I fucking get it, I'm an idiot - " Bushranger begins, starting the car and hitting the gas almost immediately.

"You're not an idiot," Queen corrects. "You're the entire _thicket."_

"Idiots don't live in bushes."

"You do and you're an idiot. I rest my case." Bushy spots her passenger rolling her eyes. "In any case - what were you _thinking?"_

"I could ask that about your wardrobe choice," she snaps back. "The fuck _is_ that?"

"You wear the same outfit every day; I wouldn't expect you to understand fashion," Queen retorts.

Bushranger cackles to that. "You wanna see me in a fucking tank top and skinny jeans?"

She shrugs. "As is, you look like a rusted knight who hasn't taken a shower in a year."

"News flash - nobody with a bullet between their eyes seems to give a shit."

"And you're stuck with me for the foreseeable future. Your point?"

Bushy sighs, slamming back on the seat. "Driving is hard enough; you yapping about my fucking _clothes_ of all things just makes it worse. You wanna start talking about something I might care about?"

"Sure," Queen sneers in return, crossing her arms. "What _was_ that?"

"Which _that_ we talkin' about?"

"You _know_ which that! I'm trying to make this act _believable_ and you're jerking away like I just quartered your pet dog and still have blood on my hands! And _then_ when you _do_ do something, you're _crushing_ me!" The monarch huffs at the end of this to presumably make her point.

Bushranger grips the steering wheel tighter. "I didn't know you're such a weak-ass cunt you can't take a proper hand-holding without wilting like a fucking daffodil," she spits out. "And I fucking _told_ you I ain't good at this shit. What, you expect me to turn into an Italian flirt overnight?"

"At least stop acting like you want me _dead_ maybe?" Queen bargains.

"I _do_ want you dead though," Bushy points out, glaring back through the rearview mirror.

"The feeling's mutual."

"So why the fuck didn't you kill me and hire some professional to rig your shitty game show?"

"I wouldn't have gotten away with just executing you," Queen explains. "You're practically a _hero_ to a lot of people."

"Flattered," Bushy hums.

"So I thought I could make you a bargain, _I'll keep you alive if you work for me._ I was expecting you to stick to your morals and deny it, and then I could go ahead with the firing squad. When people started getting upset, I could say you refused the deal and you're a public menace."

"Unfortunately for you," the driver intones, "My moral compass is a fucking roulette wheel and I very much value my life. You wonder why you get so many canaries? At the end of the day, dying fucking _sucks."_

"I wanted a dead body and I got a fake girlfriend," Queen sighs, resting her head in her hands.

"That's life for ya," Bushy agrees, nodding in solidarity.

A silence of a few seconds envelops the two before Queen speaks again. "I was mad at you about something, wasn't I?"

"Yeah, the shitty acting," Bushranger replies. "You wanna be pissed off at me some more?"

"Nothing would make me happier," she smiles slightly before her expression drops to a scowl, recommencing the argument. "Do you _not_ know what a healthy relationship looks like?"

"Apparently not," Bushy drawls, grinning to herself under her helmet. "Enlighten me, O Holy One."

Queen chuckles. "Oh, I will. Don't you worry."

"Is this a surprise for your _girlfriend?"_ She bites her lip to prevent from bursting into laughter.

"What, I can't spoil her every now and then?" the monarch seamlessly replies.

"It's a date, then," Bushy decides, pulling up to the castle once more. She parks and hops out, opening the back door. "Tomorrow night?"

"Fine by me," Queen replies, unbuckling her seatbelt and scooting out. "And tomorrow morning, you're performing, right?"

"Yep. You wanna see the shitshow?"

"I doubt it's as bad as you're making it out to be," she raises an eyebrow.

Bushy rolls her eyes under her helmet. "Trust me, it'll be pretty fuckin' bad."

"So you say."

"You gonna wear the full thing or do ya wanna come in something reasonable tomorrow?" Bushranger waves a hand up and down Queen's outfit.

She shrugs even as she crosses her arms defensively. "Whatever I'm wearing will look better than you."

"And my eleventh-place ribbon," Bushy quips; sensing the end of the conversation, she heads off to her room to practice _just_ a little bit more before tomorrow.

She's not scared or nervous; she _knows_ she's going to lose. _Then why is she putting so much effort into this?_ Bushranger can't seem to find the answer to that question, no matter how hard she searches for it over the night. She settles on the ever-reliable _So I don't look like an absolute dipshit._ Works (almost) every time.

Bushranger checks her reflection one last time, adjusting her cape. On the Kick-Ass-O-Meter, she'd score herself around a 7 of 10. "Are you _really_ sure you want to come?" she calls out the door.

"I'm pretty positive. You make it sound like you're going to commit mass murder." Bushy doesn't need to see her to know Queen's rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

"Maybe I am," she chirps back with a grin, popping open the door. Today, Queen's chosen a tiny skirt and matched it with black leggings and knee-length boots. At least she's not going to have to play Liberty Lift. "You decided you wanted the passenger seat, eh?"

The quip doesn't go unnoticed. "I can slap you when you're being annoying if I'm in the front," Queen retorts.

"Bullets can't go through this helmet. You think you'll actually hit me?"

"It's the thought that counts."

Bushy chuckles, heading down a flight of stairs, then out to the Queenmobile. "Like a shitty Christmas gift."

"Close enough," she hums, sliding into the passenger seat and fastening her seatbelt. "You ready?"

"Unlike you, I don't need to wake up at fuck o’clock in the morning to be dressed in time for the show," Bushranger retorts, taking the opposite seat and starting the engine as she slams the door shut. "Yeah, I'm ready to lose."

"To _win,"_ Queen corrects. "I'm not dating a first-round elimination."

"True," she grants, pulling onto the road. "Echidna left before me."

Queen sighs, the exasperation in her voice evident. "Are you done with the self-deprecation?"

"Alright, let's tell each other _blatant_ lies," Bushy rolls her eyes, glancing over to her passenger. "I'll start. I'm going to win this competition."

The monarch shakes her head but obliges in the game. "I love you."

Bushy pauses to contemplate her next lie. "Cactus will make the merger."

"And Wizard won't."

"I'm never going to watch your shitty meet-cute movies."

"I like your helmet, even if I insult it all the time."

"I can't top that," Bushranger grins invisibly. She lets the car fall into silence, biting her lip to stop from breaking as she delivers her next line. "I can top _you_ though."

"I thought the first rule of our relationship was no sex?" Queen's ever witty, something Bushy won't admit she admires.

"Yeah," she drawls, "But rules were made to be broken."

Queen bursts into laughter to that and Bushranger chuckles herself. They spend the rest of the ride in comfortable silence, eventually pulling up to the studio. Bushy hops out of the car, locking it once Queen does the same, and leads the way back to the contestants' lounge.

The first thing Bushy notices is that both corner seats are taken. Kitten is purring in one, curled up in a ball, and Hammerhead sits in the other. Sloth and Cactus share one end, the former checking her nails while the latter hums a verse of a song Bushranger finds eerily familiar, but can't place. Wizard's on the other end, stroking his beard as an insect crawls out of it and onto his hand; he begins talking to it quietly. It's equal parts creepy, adorable, and just fucking pathetic.

All of this to mean that the middle is empty. Bushy throws herself back on the left cushion, enjoying the way the couch tries to tell her to fuck off by groaning under the weight of her armor. Her companion perches on the right, glancing around the group. They're different than yesterday's Group A, where Frilly was the ringleader of fun and everyone seemed to get along. Group B is quiet. Everyone watches each other, assuming that the second they close their eyes, they'll get stabbed in the back. Kitten meows in an attempt to lighten the mood - Hammerhead mutters a "Can it" at her, though Wizard pats her head reassuringly. Despite sitting next to each other, they're all so far apart.

That's probably better, though. In no universe was Bushy going to try to understand the dynamics of _two_ groups. She shifts, tucking her legs under herself as Hostman pops out from the stage entrance. "Group B!" he calls out - at the general deadness of the room, he sighs. "Are you ready for the show?" Kitten and Wizard nod, while Cactus flashes a thumbs-up somehow. Bushranger's not questioning that shit. Sloth and Hammerhead join Bushy in the hard ignore squad. "Alright," Usher grins - the enthusiasm is quickly lost among the group. "Today's faceoffs are Sloth versus Wizard, Kitten versus Hammerhead, and Cactus versus Bushranger. Sloth, you're up first."

The blue blob, as Bushy deems she'll call her, stands up, shuffling to the stage. The performance is utterly forgettable - the blob moves around a bit and then gets a cape and tie, both of which fall off. Big whoop. Sloth returns, sitting down on the couch boredly as Wizard stands up with help from his staff. "You'll do great!" Kitten smiles, waving him off.

"I hope so," he replies. Wizard heads to the stage, setting up in front of a gated door, and then it begins. The performance puts whatever Sloth did to shame - not only is it vocally superior, Wizard pretends to animate his background dancers dressed as gremlins before tossing away his staff and going for those crystal-clear high notes. No contest here, he wins.

Kitten's up next - she high-fives Wizard with her paw, practically prancing to her starting position. The song's pretty good and her _mrows_ interjected at the perfect parts make it quite entertaining and fun. Feels a bit like a getaway sort of tune, though she won't tell that to Queen or anyone else.

Glancing to the side at Queen, Bushranger takes a long moment to think of something socially acceptable to do - she leans onto her, then, resting her helmet on her companion's shoulder. _This is what people do... right?_ "What'd you think?" she asks.

Bushy tries not to pull away at the slender arm slipping around her back, hand resting comfortably on her hip. "They were all pretty good," Queen offers, looking down at her. "I really enjoyed _Firework_ of the first three so far, but I know you'll blow us all away."

She chuckles to that. _I wish._ Hammerhead fires a side-eye at the duo as he stands, though it could just have been a casual glance given his facial structure. His performance is quite bland - the rockets are cool, Bushranger figures, and he has a decent falsetto, but he's likely in the bottom.

So that leaves Cactus and her. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't nervous, but she doesn't know why. It's a fucking _cactus._ She could probably shoot her and kill her, but that'd be a waste of bullets. The show starts again; with every lyric, the gnawing feeling in Bushy's stomach grows. She's _good._ And not even for a cactus. Sure, she's ugly as shit, but she's actually a good singer. Cactus even puts in some footwork, something else Bushy considers absolutely cursed. After a few minutes of the judges gushing over the potted plant, she returns, smirking at Bushranger.

It's her turn. _It's her turn._ Oh, she's _petrified._ She wonders why - she's used to being the center of attention for doing shitty things, after all. It's probably because, unlike in the world of crime, she _can't_ just shoot dead the asshole that looks at her wrong. Right.

Bushy pulls herself up, idly missing the source of warmth on her right side. She looks back to Queen, flicking her cape out one last time - the monarch offers a supportive smile as she heads off. Bushy's not going to win on vocals; this she knows. So she'd made sure to have the stage set for the energy she was going to bring to it. _It's go time._

As the music starts up, Bushy pulls a finger-gun on the background dancer, who, startled, hands her one of the two bags of money he's got. She tosses it away and resumes the stick-up, obtaining the other bag. _"I got bills I gotta pay, so I'm gonna work, work, work every day... I got!"_ The music pounds through the auditorium, reverberating up into her boots as she struts down to the center of the stage, tweaking her helmet slightly, and it's _on._ Bushy's not sure how she even remembers the lyrics, but remember them she does, even as she spins around the stage and pretends to shoot the background dancers. She can get used to this, she decides, wondering if Queen would be the type to howl about fifty thousand as she dares herself to go for some high notes of her own during the bridge. What's the worst that can happen? She gets sent home?

As the performance winds down, Bushranger collapses into a prop chair she'd used twice before, bringing a hand to her forehead to wipe mock sweat off her brow. She peers out of her helmet at the judges' panel. _They're clapping? For what, the background dancers?_

She watches them a second more - they're clapping for _her?_ The criminal can't stop a childish grin from hitting her lips as she clasps her hands together. It takes her a second to get up; when she does, the judges begin praising the performance. Bushy's heard them say this shit to contestants that sucked, so she's not drawing any conclusions from it. But, she realizes, she's got to at least _try_ to act grateful, so she mimics blowing the judges a kiss before letting them continue. After a few minutes, she's allowed to head back.

The moment Bushranger pops open the door to the lounge, a blur of black and gold rushes over and she's enveloped in a tight hug. "I told you you'd do amazing!"

Quieting the reflex to knee Queen in the groin and put two bullets through her head while she stumbles back in pain, Bushy forces herself to relax slightly in the embrace - she slides her arms free of the pin, reciprocating the hug. _She's really slender,_ Bushranger notes. "I thought of you when I was singing." _That's so fucking lame... It's also true, so what does that say?_

Queen grins but says nothing else. She lets go after a long moment, probably sensing Bushy's antsiness. "The results will be in soon."

"I think I'm going home," she confesses, pacing over to her seat and sitting down, her companion following. "No way I beat these guys."

"Have you heard yourself?" Queen sighs. "Or do you always act like this?"

"It's realism," Bushy defends, even as she finds herself leaning back on the monarch as she did before.

"And it's the truth that you killed it out there," Queen replies, apparently happy to resume their previous position. "So don't worry."

Almost as if on cue, the slimy cunt Hostman reappears. "Results are in!" he announces. The six Group B members pull themselves up, all headed to the stage.

"In the battle of Sloth versus Wizard," Usher announces, "The winner... is Sloth!"

_What?_ Bushranger blinks twice under her helmet, stunned. Wizard's shoulders slump while the blue blob does the blue blob equivalent of pumping a fist.

"In the battle of Kitten versus Hammerhead, the winner... is Kitten!"

That's one she _is_ expecting. Kitten pads over to Wizard, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"And in the battle of Cactus versus Bushranger, the winner, ladies and gentlemen, is..." The pause is longer than the other two; _Usher-Host-Man really hates her, huh?_

"Bushranger!"

_"What?"_ She's quiet about this, but it's still audible to the Cactus next to her, who sighs, joining Wizard and Hammerhead downstage as Sloth, Kitten, and Bushy retreat to the lounge. They make it just in time for the news to be announced that Hammerhead's going home. It's a no-brainer given the other two, so Bushranger's not _too_ surprised by the result. Sloth's already left by the time Wizard and Cactus return. Bushy decides she ain't sticking around for whatever boring afterparty Group B would have that involved sitting on a couch and staring at each other until someone passed out or something; she heads outside, followed by Queen, and slumps into the driver's seat of the car as the monarch slides into the passenger side and buckles her seatbelt.

"They like me?" Bushy mumbles, finally deigning to shut the door.

Queen gives her an unamused stare. "Yes, they _liked_ you," she exhales. "You and Wizard were the best performances tonight - and that's not even me saying it because I have to."

"Wizard lost his faceoff," Bushy points out, starting the car. "So to know I'm on his level is a _big_ relief."

Queen squeezes her eyes shut as Bushranger backs up, turning and driving out of the parking lot. "Do you ever tell the truth or are you just _constantly_ sarcastic and lying?" A pause. "Don't answer that, on second thought..."

"I _can_ tell the truth," Bushy defends. "Just never the one you want to hear."

"Evidently. As I was saying, though." She inhales, crossing her arms. "I know you don't believe me, but your vocal ability is astounding. The audience seemed to adore you too, given that you won against Cactus."

"She's a fucking _plant,"_ Bushranger clarifies.

"And she's not bad. You have to admit that."

Bushy frowns under her helmet. "I'm the token high-energy performer. That's why they liked me."

"Keep telling yourself that," Queen hums, knowing it's futile to argue. "You ready for tonight?"

"Sure?" She shrugs. "I'll be honest - I dunno what you're plannin', but I doubt I'm going to enjoy it."

The passenger cracks a smile at that. "Consider it training."

"Oh, God, I'm _really_ not gonna like this, am I?"

"You get to spend time with me," Queen retorts.

Bushranger chuckles. "I'd rather spend my time with a noose around my neck."

"No, you wouldn't," she corrects. "Otherwise, why would you have agreed to this?"

A long sigh emanates from the helmet. "You got me."

"I _have_ to know when my girlfriend's lying," Queen's now wearing a shit-eating grin that Bushranger _yearns_ to wipe off her.

"Keep dreaming we're actually dating," she replies. "I'm way out of your league."

"Aren't you famous for punching above your weight?" Her companion raises an eyebrow, the grin only widening.

Finding no coherent reply - _god damn it, get a fucking grip_ \- Bushranger settles for slamming on the brakes, holding back laughter as Queen bounces forward before being pulled back by the seatbelt. "That's what you get for pissin' me off," she grunts.

"So _violent,"_ the passenger mutters, rubbing her shoulder where the seatbelt crosses over it.

Bushy presses on the gas again, rolling her eyes. "News flash, my Wikipedia page says I'm responsible for over seventy-five deaths. And those are just the _provable_ ones. I'm not known for being gentle."

"So you like it rough," Queen quips, and if Bushranger didn't care, she'd have her pistol to the monarch's head and be firing through it by now. Why _hasn't_ she done that yet, actually?

Oh, right. She wanted to see how long Queen would keep her around, or at least that's the excuse she tells herself.

Nevertheless, she glares at her passenger through the slot in her helmet. "You like your face full of windshield glass? No? Then shut the _fuck_ up."

"That's not a no," she hums, grinning again as she looks out her side window. Bushranger clenches the steering wheel so tightly she's positive it has to have dent marks by now, wondering for what feels like the millionth time why she didn't just let herself be executed. Getting shot hurt less.

As they pull up to the castle once more, Queen unbuckles her seatbelt. "You know, since we got home so early, we've got more time for ourselves," she points out as she disembarks.

"More time for you to drag me through my own personal fucking hell," Bushy corrects, hopping out of the Queenmobile herself. She leans on it, eyeing the monarch as she crosses to right in front of her least expensive driver.

"You have to approach it with an open mind, Bushranger," she hums, then pauses. "That runs long, huh."

"Frillneck calls me Bushy, if that helps," the criminal divulges.

"I like it," Queen nods, repeating the nickname a few times under her breath. "My little Bushy."

"I will _kick your ass."_

"Because you're short? Less room for all that anger..."

"My God, woman," Bushranger grits, "Get to the damn point."

Queen grins. "Alright, Bushy."

"Forget I fucking mentioned that, _please."_

"It's cute, Bushy!"

_"Now_ you're just _asking_ for it," she crosses her arms, tempted to reach for the gun on her waist.

The royal giggles. "Maybe I am," she winks, turning on her heel and walking away. "Come with, the date's just beginning."

Bushranger blinks once, twice, then shakes her head and follows. Seriously, _fuck_ Queen for being such a _cunt_ yet still managing to do it in a way that doesn't immediately trigger a cartridge of bullets to the face. It irks Bushy to no end how she's able to get away with it all.

They head inside, Queen leading the way to a small yet cozy chamber that's basically a snug living room with a couch facing the largest TV screen Bushranger's ever seen, along with a loveseat and an armchair on the perpendicular walls. She whistles, vaulting over the back of the couch to fall onto one end of it as Queen shakes her head, slipping around to the other end and perching on the middle cushion.

"You're a movie type of person?" Bushy raises her eyebrows under her helmet.

The royal chuckles as she reaches for the side table to grab the remote. "Sometimes," she offers, turning the television on with a press of a button. "You?"

Bushranger shrugs. "Vaguely remember watching _Patton_ in grade school for a history project. That's about the extent of my film knowledge."

"Great, so you probably haven't seen this one." Queen enters the Netflix app on screen, searching for _Little Italy._

"Is it about the Mafia? You know me so well..." Bushy rests an arm on the back of the couch as the monarch finds the cover she's looking for and enters the movie immediately.

Queen only replies with a soft smile. From that, she should have known. The movie is utter shit; Bushy makes it a game to come up with more and more creative insults for the cast, the plot, and the people who would ever decide to watch it. Not only does it pass the time, it also pisses Queen off, so it's a win-win.

"So Wrinklemeister wants to fuck Morton Salt Girl?"

"How many shekels did they get for the Peroni sponsorship, you think?"

"This is just _Romeo and Juliet_ but nobody dies. So it's boring as shit."

"So that dick fucked her and had the _audacity_ to bring it up in front of everyone? He _deserves_ that! He deserves _more_ than that! I'd make him sleep with the fishes!"

"That old guy looks like someone took an iron to his face and - did his girlfriend self-inject Botox?"

"Her ears are huge. It's like I'm watching fucking _Dumbo_ here."

"And she _still_ likes him? How stupid _is_ she?"

"Awww, they're _friends_ now! Nobody could have _ever_ seen that coming..."

Bushranger revels in watching Queen attempt to block out her words, fueled by the glares she receives. As the credits roll, she smirks. "This is training? So, let me get this straight - you want me to learn from this that you want me to rail you one night, then make a big deal about it in front of everyone and be a bitch to you? And then when you're headed to a different continent to get away from me, I should stop you and tell you how much I love you?"

The monarch inhales sharply. "Bushranger, were you not watching the movie?"

"I was," she replies, "Which is why I'm concerned if it's incestuous. Aren't they going to basically be cousins now? Do you want to fuck your cousin, that's why you're showing this to me?"

Queen's expression is _priceless_. If Bushy had a Kodak, she'd be snapping five pictures a second. "You read too much into things," she complains. "Just enjoy the story."

"It's _shit,"_ Bushranger retorts. "And that girl _does_ have Dumbo ears."

She notes the way Queen grits her teeth, thoroughly satisfied at it; then, the royal sighs. "Fine, you asked for it." Procuring the remote, she switches over to Philo, and -

"I _hate_ you," Bushy mutters, shifting onto the armrest somewhat.

"I know," Queen hums, settling down as she kicks her legs out onto the other end cushion, resting her head on her companion's chestplate with that shit-eating grin. "You like Christmas movies?"

Bushranger winces at the amount of red and green on the screen. "You're a cunt, you know."

"I know," she repeats, still smiling as she closes her eyes for a long minute, then opens them again to watch the criminal as she edges the volume upwards.

"I'm not getting that remote, am I," she mutters, begrudgingly turning towards the screen.

"You're not," Queen agrees, humming along to the carol being used as background music. Bushy resumes her pastime of making fun of everything à la Mystery Science Theater 3000 as she cautiously slides into a slightly more comfortable leg position.

"How does she not know he's _not_ the right Mitchum? He looks nothing like the other guy!"

"That's fucking cheating. She's a cheater, she's _not good for you!"_

"Her hair's dyed, isn't it? And her legs look like they bend backwards."

"Look, they're in the snow together, how _cute..."_

"That green coat ain't doing you any favors. Try black."

"And she goes back to the guy she cheated on her fiancé with! Thinking it was his _brother!_ That came _so_ far out of left field... Unpredictable, I tell you!"

Only when the credits roll does Bushy realize she's been talking to the air. Queen had apparently dozed off a while before, finding the metal chestplate a suitable location to rest her head for a nap. Bushy slides the remote out of her companion's hand, careful not to rouse her, then mutes the television. She looks down at her.

When she's not running her mouth or being a general nuisance, she's _almost_ nice. _Almost_.

The criminal pauses, furrowing her brow. Queen's a _cunt,_ she's been over this _many_ times before. Yet she can see the reason the monarch is the media's darling - she looks flawless.

_Unlike her._ Bushranger itches for a few breaths of fresh air, so she quietly unlatches the safety hook on her helmet, flipping up the visor once she makes certain that nobody's watching. One downside of her helmet is that it's got terrible ventilation if you're wearing it practically nonstop.

Bushy inhales slowly, studying Queen now that she's got the chance. Dark curls frame a sharp, pale face, descending past her shoulders. She's struck with the urge to run her fingers through the royal's hair, but settles for twisting a few strands around her index before letting them go, noting their willingness to stay in the shape she'd forced them into.

A pause - she vaguely realizes the next movie's in its third scene already, but she couldn't care less. Moving from this position would almost certainly wake Queen up, and she doesn't really want to do that, rationalizing it as _She seems really tired, and running a country can't be easy, especially since she's got to deal with me._ So Bushranger flips her visor back down and safety-locks it, slipping her arms around Queen's waist, and closes her eyes. She ignores how almost _natural_ the position feels. It _shouldn't._

The first thing Bushy notices is the weight that's on her.

She pulls back slightly, opening her eyes blearily, then cracks a small smile under her helmet. Over the night, the royal had seemingly rolled over, now with her face burrowed in Bushranger's shoulder. _God damn..._

Bushy's content to enjoy these few minutes when Queen _isn't_ annoying the shit out of her, so she reaches cautiously for her coat's pocket, sliding out her phone, then resumes her former position, resting the phone comfortably in her gloved hands on her still-snoozing companion's lumbar curve. Maybe she should get a head start on figuring out her song for next week...

By the time she's opened her forty-second tab of "this is a possibility but I have to hear it later", Bushy notices her phone rest suddenly cramp up, then slowly return to her original state. She's waking up. Bushranger's smile - _she's been smiling this entire time?_ \- widens as she quickly devises how to ruin Queen's whole day in a matter of sentences.

"Hey there, darlin'," she hums, glancing down at her companion.

Sharp as ever, Queen replies with a "Good morning, sweetheart." She opens an eye, looking up at Bushy, and they _both_ know the game is on.

"How was the nap?" the criminal begins.

"You're warm," she grins woozily, closing her eyes again, the arms Bushranger didn't realize were wrapped around her offering a gentle squeeze.

"That's all I am to you, huh? A human heat pack?"

Queen chuckles. "With a voice box, so worse."

Bushy sighs dramatically. "Aw, come on, you know you love my voice."

"When you're singing, not talking," she specifies.

Bushranger offers a grunt to end that conversation before pivoting, _damn her._ "Liked the movie?"

"Not your comments," Queen replies.

"It's a package deal," she rolls her eyes under the helmet. "I enjoyed it."

"I know you did," the monarch hums. "You couldn't stop talking about how great it was."

Bushy smirks to that. "Would you rather I talk about how great _you_ were?"

She revels in Queen's hacking for air at that remark. "You have no basis - " she begins.

"We're dating, Queenie," Bushranger points out. "I can say you insist on having _Wiggles_ songs on when we fuck and ain't _nobody_ gonna believe you denying that."

The royal inhales shakily, gripping her acquaintance tight - Bushy takes it as a cease-and-desist order which she promptly ignores. "Why are you this way?" she finally spits out.

"I make my living off being a cunt," the criminal replies seamlessly. "It's all part of the package."

"I hate you."

"You don't," she chuckles. "Otherwise, you'd have offed me by now and made it look like an accident."

"I don't," Queen admits. "But you're still the most horrible person I know."

Bushranger raises both eyebrows under her helmet. "Because you're a paragon of fair play."

"You can always just not speak, you know," she mutters, snuggling her chin into Bushy's shoulder.

"But seeing you all worked up is _so_ much more fun, darlin'," she drawls out the last word. "You're cute when you're mad."

To this, Queen merely sighs. "You're warm," she repeats, seeming to want to drop the conversation entirely as she shifts into a slightly more comfortable position, evidently with no plans to get up anytime soon. Bushranger lets her stay there - she even flicks the volume back up on the television as she returns to researching songs for next week. She could get used to this.

It could have had a chance, but not here. Not in this world, not like this. They'd punched their tickets for different trains; if they ran parallel for a few weeks, it was happenstance and nothing else. Besides, she doesn't care. She's just counting down the days until she can leave, or maybe until she has to leave. Bushy's not sure of the difference anymore, but she is sure that it doesn't matter, and maybe that's the cruelest thing of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know it's Osher and not Usher. However, do you really think Bushranger cares?
> 
> By the way, I have a Tumblr where I semi-frequently update on info about fics and stuff. If you ask anything, I'll probably start rambling because I'm a sucker for people caring about me lmao. Check me out here! -> https://cataclysmofthemasses.tumblr.com/


	3. Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 2; a chance encounter has far-reaching consequences and a discovery leads to more of the same.

It's Monday again. Bushranger decides, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, that she quite enjoys Mondays, even if this was only her second time meeting Group A. Queen's in the backseat again with the camel dress, earbuds in and eyes closed, listening to the song she was going to cover - she'd made it a point to _not_ tell Bushy, for whatever reason, even though she'd _also_ learned what Bushy was planning and brought her the perfect stage set-up for _Poker Face_ along with detailed explanations of every step. Cunt.

She glances at her passenger once more through the rearview mirror, glad that her helmet hides her contented smile. "We're here," she announces, pulling into the parking lot. No response. Bushy jolts the car forward, quietly revelling in how Queen almost bangs her jaw into the center console before firing her driver a _very_ annoyed look. "I said, _we're here,"_ she repeats as the royal pulls out her earbuds.

"Thanks for the peaceful reminder," Queen mutters, unbuckling her seatbelt after Bushranger veers into a parking spot. She slides out of the car, making sure to keep her dress just off the ground. Bushy rolls her eyes, hopping out and leading the way, opening the door for her taller companion.

"So, you gonna tell me what you're singing today or what?"

The monarch shrugs as she passes, Bushranger closing the door behind them. "I want to surprise you," she offers. "I'm capable of a lot more than you think."

"That doesn't sound at all ominous and foreboding," Bushy notes, sticking her hands in her coat's pockets.

Queen smiles slightly, looking behind her to maintain eye contact with the slot in Bushranger's helmet. "You'll see." She glances back forward as they reach the contestant's lounge.

"Queen! Bushy!" Frillneck waves from his usual spot on the couch, hopping up and pacing over. "I've been meaning to ask you - I wanted to make a group chat with some of the other contestants. Is Group B any fun?"

Bushranger deadpans at him. "If this is an _I want to see you perform tomorrow,_ the answer is fuck no."

"She woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," Queen apologizes, shaking her head. "But they aren't quite as entertaining... There are a few really strong contestants, though."

Frilly nods, thinking this through. As he opens his mouth to ask, Bushy exhales sharply, cutting him off in anticipation. "No. Host cunt probably wouldn't allow it."

"I would," her companion clarifies, "And I'm reasonably certain I've got more jurisdiction than Osher does. So if you'd like to, Frillneck, I don't see why not."

"Usher probably got you to sign a waiver giving him half your damn kingdom," Bushy mutters under her breath, walking over to her corner and throwing herself back into it.

Queen crosses her arms, smiling good-naturedly. "As I said," she chuckles. "Wrong side of the bed..."

Frilly grins to that. "So I can come?"

"Told you so," the criminal grates.

The royal merely laughs. "I don't see why not. Bushy, we'll be swinging by Frillneck's house tomorrow morning."

Bushranger rolls her eyes. "The address?"

Frillneck slides over to her as Queen settles down on her two cushions. Bushy hands him her phone and he inputs his address on Google Maps, giving it back. She glances at the apartment complex he pointed out with a nod, then deletes the location from her history.

"So," Frilly grins, flopping back in his seat. "What're you guys singing today?"

Dragonfly giggles, bobbing her head left and right. _"They say dance for me, dance for me, dance for me oh-oh-oh,"_ she sings. "I'm first up today; I'm honestly kinda nervous..." Her hand reaches back to scratch the back of her neck.

"Don't worry," Goldfish smiles, knocking into her gently with her shoulder. "You'll do great, I promise."

As if on cue, Usher-Host-Man slithers out. "Group A!" he yells, trying to hype up the singers.

It evidently works: Frilly bellows "Group A!" back as Goldfish and Dragonfly high-five and Puppet pumps a wooden fist. Queen merely waves, but her smile is determined, ready. Bushy, of course, promptly ignores them all.

"Dragonfly, you're up first," Hostman smiles as she stands, heading to the stage. She waves back to the squad on the couch as she steps through the door, wings folded so they don't smack the doorframe. The music starts; Bushranger recognizes it from the radio, but it doesn't really sound like the song she remembers. Dragonfly fries her notes, lending an almost-feral tone to the song. Bushy finds herself drumming her fingers on her thigh in tune to the beat as the song comes to a close.

Dragonfly returns after a few minutes of judge commentary, high-fiving Frillneck as he stands up, tagging in. He has to wait at the door for a minute as the stage crew wheel in the pseudo-cliff; then, it begins. Frilly struts up the cliff as the lights go down. His frills, drooping, shine in the darkness. _"Call me what you wanna, I'll be what you wanna, I've been here a thousand times..."_ The somewhat slower song compliments him perfectly; the background dancers, not so much. Who thought about the astronaut suits with the lizard tails? He doesn't need to flick his frills up to steal the show; he _knows_ he's safe.

Frillneck skips - literally _skips,_ is his mental age seven? - back to the lounge, grinning wearily as he throws himself onto the couch. Puppet curses under his breath as the resulting bounce nearly throws him off; Bushy stifles a laugh. "You seem happy," she points out.

Frilly nods. "The judges said I did really well! But I can't wait for the other performances. Queen's up next, right?"

"That's correct," the monarch agrees.

"She hasn't even told _me_ her song yet," Bushranger sighs, crossing her arms. "Says it's a surprise..."

Queen chuckles. "Can't take the suspense, Bushy?" She reaches over to pat the top of her companion's helmet; said companion reminds herself not to let her do that again, since the helmet's now ringing annoyingly. "Alright, I'll tell you. _Paint it Black."_

"Why not white?" the criminal mutters, looking over at her.

Before Queen replies, Goldfish speaks up. "That's a tricky song," she hums, glancing up and down the monarch. "Are you sure you have the stamina for the stress of those notes?" Her gaze zeroes in on her opponent's waist.

Bushranger doesn't miss how Queen nervously bites her lip, watching the door. "Yeah," the royal offers half-heartedly. _Something's wrong._

Before Bushy can find a good plan to fix things that doesn't involve fish fingers for dinner, the slimy cunt reappears. "Queen, are you ready?" She offers a thumbs-up, standing and following Usher to the stage.

As the door closes, Bushranger chuckles. Hopefully, Queen would show Goldfish up and wipe the floor with her. On the video screen, she spots her companion being helped up to her starting podium. Then the lights dim and the performance begins. She's right - she doesn't even _need_ to move to give a show-stopping performance. Bushy can't remember the last time shivers ran down her spine like this.

There's an infinitesimal twitch in Queen's normally placid facial expression. _Don't let her get to you._ She takes a deep inhale; Bushranger knows she's about to do something drastic here.

 _Oh_. What was she _thinking?_ It didn't need that... Bushy hazards a glance at Goldfish. She's _smirking._ She's fucking _smirking._ She's fucking _smirking_ at the miss.

Bushy has never wanted to throttle someone more.

She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them, and she sees the whole lounge painted in striking crimson. Goldfish with a line of bullets through her, the others nailed in the head as well. _His_ eyes as he strikes the match to set this dump ablaze. _"C'mon, Rain, let's get the fuck out of here 'fore the cops show up."_

Bushranger bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, allowing a small trickle of blood to hit her tongue. _Stay grounded._

She's dimly aware of Queen returning to the lounge and rushing straight to the bathroom. It doesn't matter. Bushy feels her joints lock as she pulls herself up, headed for the door to the stage. She cuts Goldfish off successfully.

"Hey, cunt," she leans in just enough so that the bitch can't make out her gaze but is freaked out by it while simultaneously remaining quiet enough that the others can't tell what she's saying. "Back the fuck off her, you hear? Or your Magikarp-looking ass is gonna get cross-checked harder than a five-year-old who decided to work on learning to skate at the Stanley Cup final."

Goldfish seems shocked at this. "So you _are_ for real," she replies smoothly, avoiding the threat entirely. "After last week, I could have sworn otherwise."

"Yeah," Bushranger nods curtly - she's about to give the Pokémon knockoff another verbal shellacking but Hostman pops open the door, saving her ass.

"Goldfish, you're up," he announces. Bushy slides deftly to the side, allowing her to pass. _Cunt._ As the bitch heads to the stage, the criminal turns back, finally noticing Queen's not where she should be.

Bushy vaguely recalls her heading in the direction of the bathroom. Oh God, she knew, didn't she? She had to have known that she messed it up and taken refuge in the safest place possible, away from prying eyes.

Every step is lead as she breezes right by Frillneck, Dragonfly and Puppet, stopping in front of the restroom door. She leans on the doorframe with a soft sigh. "Can I come in?"

No response. Bushranger tries to ignore the way her heart races - she doesn't give a fuck if Queen's hung herself off the ceiling fan, she tells herself. She'll just get as far away as she can as fast as she can, fake a new set of papers, start over again. Maybe finally get out of Australia. Yeah, that'd be good.

But first to deal with this. "Queenie," she mumbles at the door once more. "It's just me. Can I come in?"

Her breath hitches in her throat at the lack of a reply for the longest time - then, a quiet _click_ of the doorknob as it unlocks. She hears the camel dress shuffle a few steps back and takes it as her cue to slip inside, sure to close the door behind her. That being done, Bushranger glances at the black on her peripherals.

Queen's sobbing into her gloves, having probably collapsed onto a wall and slidden down it. Her dress is bunched up on the floor, clumping on the tiles, and her hair, let down perfectly straight in the morning, seems frazzled and unkempt, strands refusing to be tamed. Bushy spots the tiara on the opposite wall and can only assume it was thrown there.

Oh, they were having fish fingers for dinner.

"Hey," she offers as a greeting of sorts, stooping next to her companion, who rubs her eyes, looking over. Bushranger had seen innocents beg for their lives as she dispatched them just to keep herself safe, but this gaze was entirely new. She's struck with the odd compulsion to hug Queen and let her cry whatever had gotten into her out.

"What do you want..." The defeat in her words further confirms Bushy's working theory that Goldfish had gotten under her skin and caused this to happen.

The criminal shrugs. "Wanted to see how you're holdin' up," she replies. "Not too well, I take it."

"I messed it up," Queen hiccups, trying to take a slow inhale and failing. "I messed it all up..."

"Hey, don't say that," Bushy offers a smile under her helmet, even though she knows Queen won't see it. "You're okay. It's okay."

"It's - it's _not_ okay," she coughs out. "It's not okay... I messed it up..."

Bushranger's eyebrows knit together in worry. "You did great out there, and I mean it."

"Just - just make fun of me already... like everyone does..." The monarch takes another shaky inhale, then hacks out her breath as if to prove her point.

She pauses to that, something churning in her stomach. She's got to make this better - it's her head on the line otherwise. "I'm not going to make fun of ya, Queenie."

"Sure," she bites back, clearly sarcastic. "You and everyone else in Australia. Tenth place, 'cause she can't do _anything_ right..."

"You're not going out in tenth," Bushranger grits her teeth. "Remember?"

Queen's gaze pierces through Bushy's helmet; then, her shoulders droop and she drops her head in her hands. She's crying again. _Fuck._

The criminal takes the opportunity to check her phone, quietly diverting votes as necessary. It doesn't matter who loses, it matters who goes home. Once everything looks up to snuff, Bushy slides her phone back into her pocket, shifting so she's sitting down next to Queen. "Hey," she repeats.

"What," the royal mumbles, not deigning to look over.

Bushranger offers a smile under her helmet. "We all make mistakes."

"Not like _that,"_ she sniffles. "Not in front of the whole country..."

Bushy chuckles. "You wanna hear a story?" Queen shrugs; she takes it as a cue to continue. "A long time ago, before there was a Bushranger, there was..." She trails off, looking for the right word.

"A smaller Bushranger?" Queen provides.

She grins. "Yeah, sure, let's go with a smaller Bushranger. And tiny little Bushy started off with tiny little bank robberies..." A pause. "I had the place scoped out, knew exactly when to head in 'cause the guards were switching, everything. I got a Chevy a block down the road, pulled off its tags, and I got a pistol on my hip. This was before I made this shit into a career, so I wasn't wearing my armor. Instead, I was in a hoodie and jeans," Bushranger explains. "So I park the truck, get to suiting up... Would you guess what I forgot?"

"What'd you forget?" Queen echoes, expression morose as she rubs her eyes again.

"The balaclava," she chuckles. "Rookie mistake. But the show must go on, yeah? So I snatch some eighty-year-old's scarf on the way to the bank. Without even looking at it, I wrap it around myself, then walk up to the bank, kick the doors open, and it's show time." Bushy adjusts her helmet self-consciously. "Everything went perfectly according to plan. I got the money, made sure nobody dye-packed it, and got away cleanly. Only issue was, the security footage was given to the local news stations. By the time I'd actually gotten a good look at the scarf, I was being called the _Brocade Bank Robber..._ So you can imagine how tacky I looked. And that on _top_ of a Nirvana hoodie..."

Queen snorts at that, then starts giggling, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. A weight that had been dangling in Bushy's chest lifts itself as she closes her eyes.

There are some things you can't steal, and this moment is one of them. Fuck that fishy cunt for trying to.

A knock at the door - the criminal pulls herself up. "What?"

"We need everyone on stage," Frillneck's voice emanates. "Are you ready?"

"Give us a minute," Bushy replies, rolling her eyes.

"I'd never wanna interrupt your time alone," Frilly mocks. "Just get out before Osher calls the fire brigade."

Bushranger consciously ignores the warmth in her cheeks at the jest's implications, even as Frillneck's footsteps recede. She squats back down next to Queen. "You okay to get back out there?"

A moment passes; then, the royal nods. "I'm okay," she mutters, brushing off her dress.

"You're not," Bushy contradicts immediately, offering a hand to help Queen up.

"I have to be," she replies, taking the aid. "That's all that matters."

Bushranger crosses her arms after she's sure Queen is on her feet. "Whoever told you that is a cunt."

"It's true, though," she hums melancholically as Bushy crosses to unlock and pop the door open.

"Just 'cause some noble schmuck said it doesn't mean it's true." She pauses. "You wanna watch a movie later? I promise I'll keep my mouth shut."

The slight smile Queen gives her seems to light up the whole room. "Yeah," she nods. "I'd like that."

"We can do that, then," Bushy decides. "But right now, we gotta get this elimination over with. It'll be okay." She stoops to grab Queen's tiara from the ground, nestling it in the monarch's hair.

Queen says nothing else, stepping past Bushranger and heading to the stage. Frillneck waves to her, leaning on the lounge wall by the passageway to the auditorium. "Feeling better?" he asks. She replies with a nod as he leads the way down the passage, where the other three contestants are already waiting.

Bushy watches her leave, then sighs, kicking her boot on the tile of the doorframe as she flops back on the couch. She keeps an eye on the video screen, grinning to herself as Goldfish gets eliminated. Serves her fucking right. Bushy has half a mind to track her down and make her sleep with the fishes, but she discards it soon after, knowing she'd be immediately suspect. Goldfish still pantomimes swimming with her arms as the judges congratulate her one last time. It's so damn annoying.

Then the four come back - Bushranger hops up to give her companion a quick hug, still fighting the reflex to blow a hole through whoever's touching her. She steps back, crossing her arms and tipping her helmet with a wry grin. "I told you it'd be okay," Bushy hums.

"Yeah," Queen mumbles, looking down at the gold details on her skirt. Words pass unspoken between the two that none of the others need to know.

Frillneck breaks the silence by clearing his throat, frills fluttering up slightly. "I forgot to tell you guys," he begins. "But after last week, we all decided to meet up again at a new restaurant. You want to come with this time?"

"That cunt gonna be there?" Bushranger hooks her thumbs on her coat's pockets.

Frilly shakes his head. "You mean Goldy? Doubt it. She seemed pissed at losing."

Bushy stifles a chuckle to that. _Serves her right._ She glances over to Queen, who shrugs. "Yeah, I don't see why not."

"Awesome!" Frillneck pumps a fist victoriously.

So that explains how they're sitting at a sushi bar. Bushranger quietly savors the _looks_ she's getting from the waitstaff, doubly so at the fact that she's sitting right next to the fucking Queen of all people, and triply so at the fact that the Queen herself had also graced this second-rate shop. Yeah, it's hysterical to see people's expressions as they're filming shit, tossing it up on social media like that would single-handedly prevent the apocalypse. Bushy makes mental notes of everyone there, just in case people started _really_ talking. She's not above nailing some heads to the doors to prove a point. The way shit's going, she just might.

An audible flash behind her. _Cunts._ Queen, who's pushing a single piece of sushi around on her plate with obvious lackluster, slides the piece into her wasabi. Bushy's shoulders tense up. _Stupid paparazzi._ Before she consciously knows what's happening, she's pulled out her pistol, spun the barrel, and is standing from her stool.

The offender, some idiot Thylacine, immediately reminds Bushranger why she's taken to abusing Uber Eats. He slides his phone in his pocket, trying to act discreet with the world's biggest guilty shit-eating grin.

"This is why you're endangered," the criminal intones, sauntering over in three long strides for her short frame. "They don't have hunting permits for your kind 'cause you're too stupid to live. Luckily for me, I've got the last one. Lets me blow out the brains of any cunt I see who's askin' for it. You fit the bill."

The entire restaurant's stunned into silence. Puppet and Frillneck whisper to each other, and Bushy's nearly positive she heard the word "Molotov" thrown in their conversation. Dragonfly looks fucking _petrified_ while Queen's giving her a _what the fuck_ look that Bushy knows is also a _you're gonna fuck us all over._ Okay. Play it safe.

"E-excuse me?" The Thylacine stutters out, not even looking Bushranger dead in the slot of her helmet. _Grow some balls._

"You heard me, boy," she replies swiftly, placing the barrel of her gun on the Thylacine's forehead. He shivers, and that only makes her smirk wider. "You should switch your therapist - whoever it is, they ain't workin' if you still want to die this bad."

In the background, the waitress is literally _begging_ Queen to _please_ let her call the cops; the monarch is calmly denying the request, explaining the singing competition they're both a part of and that Bushranger was already under 24/7 security watch, which seems weak even to her but they buy it. Whatever. License to kill.

Thylacine shifts backwards before realizing Bushy's pinned him against the wall. "Wh-what?"

Knowing she's got her prey exactly where she wants him, the criminal fiddles with the safety hook on the right side of her helmet, revelling in how close to passing out from sheer _terror_ her victim is. "You like oxygen?"

"Y-yeah?" Thylacine stutters out. "Please don't - "

"And if I did?" She replies. "Ain't nobody gonna stop me."

"Look, I'll - I'll get rid of everything, I promise - " he bargains, eyes widening as Bushy presses the cold metal halo of her pistol's barrel hard against his forehead.

She _laughs_ to that, her voice ringing around her helmet. "You better. _All_ of you." The comment is directed at everyone in the restaurant; they seem to get the memo, pulling down social media posts and deleting pictures. Thylacine, with trembling fingers, reaches slowly into his pocket, doing the same. When he's done, he drops the phone on the table. Bushranger swipes through the cunt's gallery, making sure he's not hiding any shit; verifying that at least he's not _completely_ suicidal, she steps back, sliding her gun into its holster. "Nice to see we're all getting along. Frill, get the check."

The Group A member perks up at hearing his name, looking to the shaken waitress expectantly - she slides the receipt across the counter. Without looking, the ringleader drops a hundred and a twenty on it, muttering a "Keep the change".

The group has almost up and left when some kid sitting in the corner looks up from the wall she's crayoning. "Why is Bushranger here? Isn't she part of the other group?" Her mother yells an apology across the restaurant, gripping her daughter's shoulder tightly.

 _She has a point..._ The other members take Bushy's handwave as a cue to get the fuck out - she leans in the doorway, crossing her arms. "Blame Frills," she drawls out. "Fucker got to visit Group B last week. Won't stop leavin' me alone." With that, she lets the door close behind her, jogging a few meters to catch up with the others, who'd already gotten into the minibus they'd borrowed from the Masked Singer staff. Bushy slides into the driver's seat, starting the car up and slamming on the gas pedal like she's trying to break the zero-to-sixty world record.

"That was _awesome,"_ Frilly grins, exhilarated. He slouches back onto the passenger seat, closing his eyes.

"That was terrifying," Dragonfly specifies, leaning forward onto Frillneck's seat.

Puppet, next to her, shrugs. "It was pretty cool," he generalizes.

Queen, sitting in the back row, turns to watch the rear window. "I think someone's following us," she mutters. "Good going, Bushy."

"The fuck was I _supposed_ to do?" the driver grates. "Let them start makin' theories and shit? Next thing you know, they'll figure out that we're together and we're gonna be _screwed!"_

The monarch sighs, turning back and resting her head on her hands. "I knew it was a bad idea," she mumbles.

Bushy rolls her eyes, pivoting a sharp left - she's thanking her lucky stars right now for the fact that she'd insisted on the unmarked van. "For our first public appearance with each other? It could've gone a _lot_ worse. On the bright side, that was insane free publicity for the show. _And_ I've also covered why I'm hanging with Group A. So we can do something like this again next week."

"No thanks," Dragonfly flutters her wings nervously. "I think I'd rather stay on the good side of the law..."

"I _am_ the law," Queen chuckles from the backseat. "And the only person who's on my bad side right now is my _idiot_ girlfriend."

"What was I _supposed_ to do? You'd have had my head if I wiped the place out like I wanted to. And we couldn't let that shit slide. You _know_ that." The driver presses on the gas, flying through a yellow light.

"If I weren't there," she retorts, "You'd be wanted for domestic terrorism."

"Aren't I already?" Bushy fires back, smirking under her helmet. "Moot point."

Queen exhales sharply, tipping her head back in frustration. "You have to stop trying to get yourself killed, honey..." There's a concerned edge to her tone, which suggest she's either a good actor or she actually cares. Bushranger would bet on the former.

"...I know," she replies after a pause, veering into the Masked Singer studio's parking lot. "I'll see you guys next week?"

Frillneck unbuckles his seatbelt as the minibus stops. "Tomorrow," he corrects.

"Right," Bushy nods. "We're picking you up tomorrow."

The group hop out of the van, all going their separate ways. Bushranger flops back into the driver's seat of the Queenmobile as her passenger slides in behind her.

She's expecting the verbal lashing to continue. She's certainly _not_ expecting Queen to instead give her a sincere "Thanks for that."

"Hey, anytime," Bushy grins, through her helmet, into the rearview mirror. "Sorry for the mess..."

"You did what you had to," the royal shrugs.

"We still on for the movie?" she asks after a moment.

"I don't see why not." Queen offers a slight smile back. Melancholic as it is, there's something about it that's got her just a little off-balance. She can't place it.

Bushranger's struck by an odd sense of déjà vu as the film starts. _Another Christmas flick._ Great. She glances down at the table - Queen had placed a giant bowl of popcorn there, but it almost felt like a dick-measuring contest as to who would dig in first. So, of course, Bushy wouldn't bite.

She crosses her arms, glaring at the screen. Staying quiet was going to be _hard._

As if she could tell what her companion was thinking, Queen chuckles. "I won't mind," she hums, adjusting a glove.

Bushranger grunts to that, but soon begins her barrage of insults and complaints.

"What trash bin did you find this in?"

"Kid won't even care. Waste of time. Buy 'em a personal defense weapon, get the party started. More useful."

"Isn't he that Terminator guy? Why is _he_ doing this? Blew through the money too quick?"

"Just steal the damn thing! No rich cunt will notice the difference."

"This for kids? You trying to turn 'em into mini-mes?"

"Jingle all the way my _ass."_

By the end of the movie, Queen's napping on Bushy's shoulder, evidently either with as little regard for her personal safety as that Thylacine or knowing full well that the criminal _wouldn't_ snap her neck at the first opportunity. Goldfish's words swim in her mind as she quickly turns off the television. Fuck her, but.

She was convincing? Bushranger can't quite be sure of that. Whatever shit Queen had forced her through had helped, apparently. Or maybe she was just eager to bite the imbecile who thought upsetting a royal was a good idea. Yeah, maybe it's that.

Even now, Bushy's head feels abnormally light. Running through a mental checklist, she quickly ascertains why - besides a protein bar she'd grabbed on the way out that morning, she hadn't had a lick to eat. Given the fact that neither of them had had anything at the sushi place, no wonder Queen was tired. Bushranger's feeling a little woozy herself...

She tries to ignore how she's woken up at hell o'clock in the morning by crunching. She's unfortunately unable to ignore how soon after, the familiar weight on her side lifts itself. Opening an eye, she spots Queen's figure receding in the darkness. Bushy shifts up, noticing the bowl of popcorn on her legs. Perhaps three handfuls, at most, had been taken from it. She's almost drifted off again by the time the monarch returns, rousing Bushy with her collapse onto the couch, and, by extension, the criminal. Closing her eyes once more, she feels Queen shivering against her, arms wrapping around as if to eke out droplets of heat.

"Want me to grab a blanket?" Bushranger asks softly.

Queen stiffens against her for a moment, evidently not expecting her to have awoken. She thinks the offer through, then replies. "Stay. You're warm."

"...Okay," she nods, allowing her companion to rest atop her, gradually ceasing her shaking. Once she's sure Queen's asleep again, Bushy reaches down with one arm to make sure the popcorn bowl is safe on the rug. As it is, she lets her arm find the curve of the royal's back; she too, then, drifts off, humming tomorrow's song to herself.

"Bushranger?"

The criminal in question grunts, opening her eyes blearily. Where the fuck - _oh._ "You like your new pillow?"

"It's quite comfortable, if I do say so myself," Queen quips in return, then shifts. "We've got places to be today."

"We do," she agrees. "How many millennia will it take you to get ready?"

"Less time than you'll get in jail," she retorts, pulling back - Bushy lets her go, rolling off the couch herself. She narrowly avoids hitting the popcorn bowl, standing up and placing it back on the table.

"We're playing Crazy Taxi today," Bushranger adjusts her helmet. "So we gotta be out early."

"And I won't be having problems with that," the monarch grins, offering a slight wave as she turns to leave. "By the way, I made sure to stock sandpaper in your bathroom. You might want to use it for the rust on your armor."

"Fuck you," Bushy replies as Queen turns the corner and disappears. She sighs, stretching her arms backwards, then heads to the restroom.

...That _bitch._ How the fuck did she even _get_ a roll of sandpaper like that? The criminal whacks it, letting it unfurl onto the floor, bouncing on the toilet paper holder. "Cunt," she mutters under her breath. Bushranger catches a glimpse of her helmet in the mirror, smirking to herself. Yeah, we're looking good today.

As Bushy heads out, she's greeted by none other than the cunt herself. Queen crosses her arms, evidently having waited for her at the doorway. "How long do I have to wait for you?" She rocks a hip outward, placing a hand on it. It's apparently miniskirt day.

Bushranger shrugs. "You've waited long enough for someone like me to enter your life. You can wait a few minutes to make sure I'm in one piece."

Queen chuckles at that; Bushy finds herself smiling under her helmet. "Do you have the address?" The royal asks.

"I think it was along Break-Me-Neck Hill?" She pauses. "Real place, by the way. Tasmania."

"Is it near Gunpowder Street?" Queen's tone is laden with sarcasm. "And Here's-The-Money-Don't-Shoot Avenue?" She yawns, a gloved hand reaching up to cover her mouth. "You forgot, didn't you?"

"No, I know exactly where we're headed," Bushranger corrects. "But telling you is boring. So." With that, she sets off down the hallway, her companion not far behind.

The car ride to Frillneck's place is uncharacteristically quiet for the duo. Queen checks her phone, then stares out of the passenger-side window, not deigning to start a conversation; Bushy doesn't press her luck after she gets a half-hearted glare from her companion for honking for almost a minute at some fucker who decided crossing the street at a snail's pace was a good idea. As they pull up to the apartment complex, Bushranger grins, reaching for the horn again.

She assumes the whole neighborhood is pissed off at her by the time Frilly hops into the backseat. To be fair, she'd have blasted the head off the cunt who blared the horn to the tempo of _Blinding Lights_ herself.

"The whole neighborhood doesn't need the reveille," Frillneck jokes, fastening his seatbelt.

"Fair," Bushy agrees. "But it's certainly more fun that way."

"True," he grants, frills flapping up and down. "Have you heard the news?"

"What news?" She raises an eyebrow under her helmet.

 _"The_ news," Frillneck grins. "Word got out."

"Everyone's talking about it," Queen groans from the passenger seat as Bushy veers onto the highway. "They're saying all kinds of things. How did you agree to come? Especially with me of all people around?"

"People are saying Puppet and I are part of your gang," Frilly adds. "Sometimes, they add Dragonfly in too. The best ones are where we're holding Queen hostage."

"Some people keep mentioning the possibility of a royal pardon. There are hashtags with thousands of posts about it and petitions for _and_ against," Queen mutters. "And that's not even the worst."

"You mean the people convinced that you've been brainwashed?" The backseat passenger hums noncommittally.

"No," she sighs. "I wish."

"What are they saying?" Bushranger asks, then wishes she didn't.

Queen resumes staring blindly out the window. "The LGBT community of Australia is _convinced_ we're gay."

"So?" She raises an eyebrow. "Are they wrong?"

"They're not," the monarch admits. "But it's caused a giant furor. Everyone and their grandma has an opinion on it. _Especially_ the royalists who insist on an heir..."

"You mean the _assholes?"_ Bushranger replies smoothly.

"Same difference," Frilly pipes up.

"And if there's no heir? Who takes the throne after I die?"

A shrug from the driver. "Adoption exists. Or something planned so your DNA's in the kid. Or you can just hand off the title to one of the hundreds of nobles whose jobs are sitting on their asses and exploiting poor people."

The royal sighs again, lapsing into silence - Bushy quiets the urge to bring up shotgun therapy for the cunts who didn't agree with... well, whatever twisted form of a relationship they had. She pulls into the studio parking lot; once she slides the car directly in between two spaces like the jackass she is, the trio disembark, heading to the contestants' lounge.

Bushranger beelines to the corner seat now vacant, flopping onto it happily and enjoying the creaky "fuck you" the springs give her. Queen sits down calmly enough next to her while Frillneck throws himself onto the empty end seat next to Wizard. "So these are your friends?"

Sloth scoffs, tipping her head slightly as she examines Frilly. "I wouldn't call myself a _friend,"_ she points out. "More of a fellow contestant. Who are you?"

"Frillneck," he replies, nonchalant. "Group A."

"Wouldn't leave us alone until we let him come with," Bushy grunts.

"Aha." Cactus looks up, toying with the flower on her head. "Is Osher okay with it?"

Queen shrugs as Hostman pops out from the door. He looks at Frillneck, an eyebrow raised, but doesn't mention it. "Group B?" Usher's tone is half-dead; he already knows how little the group cares. Kitten meows, waving, but the others alternatively glance up from their conversations or don't even deign to look at him. "Bushranger, you're up first."

The criminal sighs, exaggerating it so Hostman hears. "Yeah, yeah. Everything set up?"

"Yep." She's getting under Usher's skin, apparently. His voice suggests he's about to check the contestants' contracts to find the loophole to eliminate her today.

Bushy smirks to herself, hopping up and sliding deftly past Hostman to the door of the stage. She tries to ignore the electric buzzing in her veins as she falls back into a wooden chair at a saloon-inspired poker table, eyeing today's background dancers skeptically. Then the music kicks up. _Give them a show._

As the first notes pound into Bushranger's helmet, vibrating it ever-so-slightly, she hears one of the judges point out that the song's by Lady Gaga. _Thank you, asshole._ She rolls her eyes, slipping into the choreo. A pretend win at a round of poker, then the background dancers argue the result. She finger-guns one of the dancers with the rhythm before heading in front of the table, throwing her coat out. As with the last performance, it's a _blur_ of energy and vocals - Bushy vaguely recalls sort of hitting on one of the two girl background dancers as the music climbs up to the chorus, and she grins as she scares off another dancer to end the routine. Hah. Take that, Koala.

The judges begin to talk about the performance as Bushranger instantly tunes them out. After a bit, she's let free to head back to the lounge. Wizard stands up once he spots her, using his staff to help secure his balance. Frillneck waves him off to the stage as Bushy flops back into her corner seat next to Queen.

"You did great out there," the monarch smiles, resting a hand on the criminal's shoulder as said criminal shifts into the touch, knocking her shoulder into Queen's side. She again quiets the urge to empty a cartridge into her for getting so close. _Make it believable._

Wizard's only used the fog machine today, his staff having been left at the stage entrance. The song's familiar; she can't quite place it, but it feels even better than the original. How was it possible to hit such low notes? And then transition so well into the higher ones? He has to go far.

As Wizard returns, Frillneck leaps from the couch, dashing the few paces to hug the taller man. He slaps the other's back twice before letting go with a goofy grin. "Damn!"

Wizard chuckles, smiling slightly as he finds his staff and grabs it. "I hope that was good enough..."

"The fuck you mean?" Bushy pipes up. "You're probably the best person in our group!"

Kitten looks up from her corner, where she's curled into a ball. "He's been moping in my texts all week about losing his faceoff," she explains, looking to Sloth who's at the door to the stage.

"Shouldn't have," Bushranger grunts out as the next contestant waddles her way to her starting point. The performance Sloth gives only proves her point - even _she_ can sing better than that and that's not saying much. Shuffle, shuffle, arm toss. Utterly forgettable from the blue blob.

For some reason, she waddles back in as if she just shot the sheriff, seeming completely content. Kitten uncurls herself, stretching in a way that would most certainly break anyone else's back before giving Wizard a high-five. At Frillneck's fake pout, she meows, offering him one too; after he takes the opportunity, wiping the false expression, she bounds out to the stage and the giant well of milk.

Kitten's performance is pretty good, and her meowing at the end probably endears her to the judges more. Bushy shifts, letting her helmet clank on Queen's puffy sleeve. It's between her, Cactus, and Sloth then to go home...

Speaking of Cactus, she heads out as Kitten returns. While Kitten leaps back into her corner and curls up again, Cactus looks at the smoking, broken car on stage with annoyance before she begins. _"I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone, I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn!"_ Her background dancers are terrifying in a way that blowing up an apartment complex with a rich fucker trapped inside isn't. This performance is weaker than last week's, Bushy decides. So maybe she's safe?

Cactus reappears in the doorway, waving everyone to head to the stage. "C'mon!" She paces over to Kitten, poking her in the cheek; the sleeping contestant meows at Cactus, thoroughly annoyed, as she pulls herself up. Bushranger peels herself off Queen, rolling her shoulders as she, too, heads to the stage, Wizard and Sloth behind her. The elimination is thoroughly uneventful; of the five remaining, she'd known Sloth would go home before she even opened her mouth. This, of course, only means that the field's gotten that much harder.

Why the fuck does she care? It's a stupid singing competition. What's the point in going far?

Ah. Yes. Because that Koala bitch said she couldn't. Cunt. She'll prove _him_ wrong.

In any case, now that Sloth's gone, the atmosphere has lightened considerably. Bushy finds herself having resumed the admittedly comfortable position on Queen's side, watching Frillneck gesture wildly as he tells the story of yesterday.

"And you know Bushy, right? You know she won't take any shit. So this guy, looked like a tiger or something - "

"Thylacine," Bushranger corrects. "You can tell because he's stupid as shit. Also, the facial structure."

"Thylacine," Frilly nods, pronouncing the name slowly. "Anyway! This guy's one of many taking pictures. Bushy decides that's it, she storms up to him - _you should have seen his face!"_ He wheezes. "The whole _restaurant_ was so scared..."

"That's normally what happens when you put a gun to someone's head," Bushy mutters for context. She chuckles nevertheless as Frillneck continues rambling about their escapade and how fun the car ride was.

As he finishes up the story, Queen gives him a slightly strained smile. "I'm sure they've heard about everything in the news," she laughs awkwardly, fidgeting with a glove.

"This is the fun version!" Frilly beams back. "From a first-person perspective!" He surveys the group for a moment. "By the way... I've been thinking about creating a Masked Singer friend group chat. And I know Bushranger wouldn't ask you for me, so I had to come do it myself."

Kitten meows, looking up from her curled-up position. "I'm sure Wiz would love to," she grins. It doesn't take a master at reading expressions to know this isn't directed at Frillneck but at the sorcerer between them.

Said sorcerer glares good-naturedly back. "I'm interested in knowing more about Group A is all," he defends.

"Especially the cute ones, huh," Kitten's smirk grows wider. Bushy bites her tongue to not burst into laughter at Wizard's offended yet guilty expression, even as Frilly takes the phone that's thrust into his lap, dialing in his contact. Judging by how Wiz turns even redder when he's given his phone back, Frillneck's also noticed and taken advantage of his flustered state.

When Frilly's had enough fun teaming up with Kitten to fuck with Wizard - and the content they provided could fill a feature film - the group separates once again. Bushy hops into the driver's seat of the Queenmobile, rolling her eyes as Frillneck calls shotgun. "You a good shot?" She studies him through the reflection in the rearview mirror. "If shit goes down, there's an automatic on the side of the seat. I didn't even put it there, before you ask."

Evidently not expecting that, Frilly stammers into silence - Bushranger grins. "Point and pull, kid." She reverses out of the parking lot, shifting gears as her rear passenger complains that she hadn't had the time to buckle in, which, for the record, is for pussies. Bushy spends the entirety of the ride to Frillneck's place being karma's boomerang, making fun of his obvious connection with Wizard until she can see he's debating shooting himself with the automatic. By that time, they've pulled up to his place, and he scurries out like a decimated survivor spared to give his posse a message. Queen slides into the front seat, exhaling sharply as they pull away.

"What do we do?"

"What do you mean?" Bushranger crosses her arms, then unfolds her right to keep it on the steering wheel.

A pause from her passenger. "Bushy. The literal day after people catch us together and begin thinking things, you go out and sing what's basically the Bisexual Anthem in all its pink, purple and blue glory."

"And?" She raises an eyebrow under her helmet. "I had that planned for the last week, Queen."

"I know," she concedes, "But still..."

Bushranger drums her fingers on the wheel. "What do you want me to do?"

Queen shrugs listlessly, turning to face her driver. "I don't know," she admits.

"Hypothetically," Bushy lifts a hand to gesture, "If they found out. What would happen?"

"I didn't know you _knew_ the word _hypothetically,"_ Queen snarks; then, her cockiness dissipates. "If they found out what?"

"If they found out we're dating." The criminal uses air quotes on the last word. "You're the fucking _Queen._ What _could_ they do?"

She's not blind to the way the royal practically deflates into her seat. "...They'll talk about it. They're talking about it already. The official government social media's getting death threats..."

"For some eleven-year-old lesbian's projecting?" Bushy rolls her eyes. "They have nothing. They're just rumors, is all."

"Rumor has it, though."

The criminal slams hard on the brakes, jarring her monarch companion while also narrowly avoiding an opossum that decided to cross the road. "Better they think we're kissing in the backseat than they know we're rigging the votes. It's not a crime to date a girl, you know."

 _"You_ are a _walking_ life sentence," Queen points out. "That's the other half of the problem!"

"That's a problem for next time. The problem for _right now_ is _don't worry about what some cunts with keyboards think._ It's gonna be alright."

The royal nods, returning to looking out the window melancholically. "I guess."

Is it really going to be alright? Bushranger sighs, drumming her fingers on the keyboard of her laptop idly. She supposes she'd be a hysterical sight, what with the headphones securely fastened around her helmet, but nobody's here to laugh at her. And if there were, she wouldn't give a fuck anyway.

She watches her cursor blink idly, then deletes a few words on the screen, changing them up. Bushy tests the cadence on her fingers; satisfied that the syllables match, she saves the document once more. If Queen wanted her to change the lyrics up to sound less gay, then that's what she'd do. Not a big deal.

She skims the paper again. Maybe it was too much? No, Bushranger decides. If they were giving her a platform to express herself, why not use it to its full potential? People changed pronouns all the time - what's the harm in taking it a step further and telling a story?

It had taken her a bit of time to find an abandoned wing in the castle where she wouldn't be found or interrupted. When Bushy did, she immediately took to sneaking there to practice. Currently, she's sitting on a bed that hasn't been used in the better part of a year, judging by the thin veneer of dust that cracked off when she'd flopped down on the sheets. A printed page is lying on her knee, front end drooping - Bushy slides it onto her thigh to prevent obscuring the top half. Tomorrow's the Group A final, so she doesn't expect to get much practice in; hence, today is the last time she could reliably run over the lyrics she'd devised. Her headphones, still clamped awkwardly on her helmet, are plugged into her phone, where she'd thrown the backing track on loop. Bushy checks her battery. Nineteen percent. She'd have to call it a day soon. One last time, though.

Bushranger slides the song back to the start, then hits play.

_"I look up from the ground_

_To see your sad and teary eyes_

_You look away from me_

_And I see there's something you're tryna hide_

_And I reach for your hand but it's cold_

_You pull away again_

_And I wonder what's on your mind..._

_And then you say to me you made a dumb mistake_

_You start to tremble and your voice begins to break_

_You say you never planned to die alone_

_That I should accept fate_

_And I feel the color draining from my face..._

_So I just say,_

_"I know you loved him, but it's over, mate_

_He'll never pick up, put the phone away_

_It's never easy to walk away, let him go_

_It'll be alright..."_

_So I still look back at all the red-flagged accidents_

_And I know it wasn't right, but it was fucking with my head_

_And everything in smoke just like the past, yeah, it was gone_

_And when I saw your face, I could tell you'd moved right on_

_But it's not the fact that they found you in your grave_

_It's the feeling of betrayal, that I just can't seem to shake_

_And everything I know tells me that I should walk away_

_But I just wanna stay..._

_Yeah, I just say,_

_"I know you loved him, but it's over, mate_

_He'll never pick up, put the phone away_

_It's never easy to walk away, let him go_

_It'll be okay_

_It's gonna hurt for a bit of time_

_So bottoms up, let's forget tonight_

_You'll work without him and you'll be just fine_

_Let him go..."_

_But nothing heals the past like time_

_And they can't steal_

_The fire in your eyes..._

_But nothing heals the past like time_

_And they can't steal_

_The fire in your eyes..._

_"I know you loved him, but it's over, mate_

_He'll never pick up, put the phone away_

_It's never easy to walk away, let him go_

_It'll be okay_

_It's gonna hurt for a bit of time_

_So bottoms up, let's forget tonight_

_You'll do it better, yeah, you'll be just fine_

_Let him go..."_

_It'll be alright_

_It'll be alright_

_It'll be alright_

_It'll be alright_

_It'll be alright..."_

There are arms around her waist.

Where did they come from what did they want how didn't she hear them coming she's going to die -

"Hey."

Oh fuck, it's _her._

"Get the fuck off me," Bushy grunts, shrugging her shoulders in an effort to rid herself of the weight on her back. She opens her eyes finally, whirling around to glare at the offending royal, who's fallen backwards onto the mattress. "The _fuck_ do you want?"

Queen's facial expression morphs from a resounding _Shit_ to - aw _hell_ no, Bushranger was _not_ gonna deal with this shit today. No _fucking_ way. "I, uh, heard you practicing?" she tries. Her eyebrows knit together. "Is that your song for this week? You've been awfully secretive about it..."

"And if it is?" Bushy crosses her arms, taking a long, slow inhale. "Stop looking at me like I'm a fucking puppy you just kicked."

"I'm - " She shakes her head, shifting up and scooting over to sit beside the thoroughly annoyed criminal. "You changed the lyrics."

"Good job, Sherlock," Bushranger retorts, tone laden with sarcasm. "You want a Nobel for that?" She pauses the backing track with a sigh.

Queen raises an eyebrow, then drops it. "Is it possible for you to _not_ be a ball of fury and spite for _five seconds?_ It's an unhealthy coping mechanism."

"Like you're one to talk." Ah, she's hit a nerve by the way the royal glances off to the side with a quiet sigh. She surprisingly doesn't reply, so Bushy finds herself continuing the conversation. "I know I'm gonna lose this week, so might as well."

"It's about you, isn't it?"

"Huh?" She's taken off-guard by this statement, blinking once, twice as she shakes her helmet slightly.

Queen fiddles with the hem of her miniskirt before explaining. "You can't make all of that up on the drop of a hat, Bushy."

Bushranger looks back to her companion, tipping her head slightly. "And if it is real?"

"Do you want to talk about it?" The monarch slips a strand of stray hair behind her ear. "If not, I understand. You don't have to tell me."

_Huh? This cunt actually -_

_She's using you._

A shrug. "You liked it?"

"It's great," Queen offers a slight smile. "Are you going to sing it like that? You know how the rumors start..."

"I don't know," Bushy admits. "It feels more natural this way, but that cunt doesn't deserve it."

A hand is placed on hers - the criminal realizes she's been crumpling up the paper and lets it go. "Whatever you think is best."

She toys with a corner of the page, dog-earing it back and forth. _You don't want to look weak, do you?_ "He doesn't deserve it," Bushranger repeats.

"Then he doesn't," Queen agrees, even if Bushy knows that she's clueless as to what she means. They sit there like that for a little bit before the royal speaks again. "Do you want anything?" At her grunt of noncomprehension, Queen elaborates. "Should I stay? Go? Do you want me to listen to anything? Or get something? Speaking of, you should keep a bottle of water with you when you practice; singing a lot tends to cause vocal stress."

Bushranger shrugs. "Do whatever you want. Not like I care." She's expecting Queen to promptly fuck off; she's not expecting her to stay, kicking her legs back and forth off the side of the bed and drumming her fingers on Bushy's hand, which is still fidgeting with the page.

It's quiet. She likes the quiet, the rhythmic tapping on her glove, the calmness of it all. Her companion's watching her, Bushy notes, and she's looking right back, but it's not tense like a shoot-out would be; there's no gunpowder smoking up the air. The whole thing is oddly peaceful, in a way life never really was. She's safe here, somehow. Queen's not going to hurt her.

The idea's honestly kind of laughable when Bushranger revisits it a second later. She's Public Enemy Number 1 and Queen's the Head of State; they should be at each other's throats, cursing and fighting. But they're not. They haven't really ever been, outside of verbal squabbles that honestly feel more like a game than anything else. What the hell? Even the royal staff give her the _Please don't kill me_ look as they mostly scurry around her. The only people that don't are the Masked Singer group.

It's nice, for a change. It's nice to just exist, to not have to worry every waking minute who's going to rat you out. To be human again.

"Do you know about him?" Bushranger finds herself asking to the void, returning to toying with the paper.

The void has Queen's voice, and it replies as Bushy spaces back into reality. "I don't think I do."

"His name was Moonlight," she exhales slowly. "I - called him Light, for short. It's in the papers, all the shit they said..."

"If I wanted to read the papers," the royal reminds her companion, still drumming her fingers on Bushy's glove reassuringly, "I'd have done it already."

She pauses at that. "So you don't want to know."

Queen's eyebrows rise and furrow slightly. "I never said that," she corrects. "I just don't want to know things you're not okay with telling me, is all."

 _And she almost sounds genuine too._ The criminal turns her wrist subconsciously, closing her fingers around the monarch's hand. "If he were here right now... I know I should deny it, but I honestly don't know whether I'd run into his arms or beat him to a pulp."

"Hm?" There's a calm, steady pressure radiating through Bushy's glove. In a way that nothing really has made her feel before, she's oddly relaxed.

Maybe it's just the fact that she's spent almost a decade with a target on her back. Yeah, that's it. "Light was... he was..." The words dry up on Bushranger's tongue - she coughs once, clearing her throat.

Queen offers a weirdly comforting smile, tipping her head slightly to keep eye contact with the slot in Bushy's helmet. "A friend of yours?"

"More than that," she nods - _that_ much was patently obvious. "I started off small, you know. Back when I could still go home. When I could head out on the street and not be recognized, when the most they had on me was petty larceny." Bushranger takes a deep breath, glancing downward. "I never meant it to go this far..."

"You can't change the past," Queen reminds her softly. "But you can change the future."

She nods again, not speaking for a long moment. The silence pervades all of her senses, static coloring the air. "I was just looking for a few hits of adrenaline. Something to help pay the bills... He chose the same place, same date, same time I did. We almost killed each other in the standoff, but then we realized the cops were coming... Do you know the first rule of the bush?" At her companion's shake of her head, Bushy continues. "You never leave a brother behind."

She pauses there, assesses where to go and how from this point. "He tells me his getaway car has room for a passenger, that there's a semi on the backseat. If I don't follow him, he says, he'll blow my brains out so there's no canary. If I do, I have no idea what happens, but at least he might keep me alive. This guy's obviously my senior in the business, too... so I follow him. Pull as many bags as I can to the minivan he's got, get in, get out."

The criminal chuckles, though it's tinged with melancholy. "We hightail it out of there just before the cops pull up. The guy's driving for way too long before we get out in the literal middle of nowhere. He takes me to this shitty little shack, it's got like three rooms and no running water. I wonder if this is where the guy lives, but it turns out it's just his loot hideout. He pops open a trapdoor, leads me down into this cave of dollar bills. We drop off the shit, then head back to the car. The guy introduces himself as Moonlight; I tell him I'm Thunderbolt, 'cause that's what I used to go by. Light laughs to it and says I'm not really much of a thunder type, more of a steady rain at best. He says he's working on forming a small gang of criminals, that it's easier than alone. I know it's a bad idea. I _know_ it. But I agree to get on board."

Bushy glances to Queen - she's still listening. Why does she care? "I officially disappeared a few weeks later, 'cause fuck Woolies. Light picks me up one Saturday night; we head out to the shack, and that's where I meet Melville and Bluecap. Mel's the tallest of us all, claims he can catch bullets in his teeth; he was gonna be a blacksmith but decided he's too good for it. Cappy's barely above my size, always in shades 'cause the sun hurts his eyes. Damn good shot though.

"So there are four of us now, four idiots searching for the thrill of the chase. We'd fallen into a routine, soon. I'd research the places, find the security holes, know when to hit and what to bring. I'd set the fire on the other side of town to distract everyone from the robbery. Cap would be lookout sniper, stationed a few roofs away. Mel was the enforcer, doing most of the rough work. Once saw him snap a guy's head right off for lookin' at him wrong. He was always the angry type, you know. Light, as the self-proclaimed leader, would do the yelling and the collecting. He called the shots. Literally.

"By the time I rolled up with the getaway car, everything would be done. Mel'd be covered in blood more often than not, Light would have some hundred thousand in banknotes, and Cap'd probably be complaining that he didn't get any action. Of course, that'd tend to change when the call came in on us. Say what you want about him, but Cap's a damn good shotgun seat. He'd try not to kill anyone 'cause he and I were the only ones with moral codes, but headshots were effective."

Bushy squeezes Queen's hand, looking up to the ceiling. "I was one of the guys. I guess I was grateful for it, you know? Otherwise, I'd still be scanning some cunt's avocadoes.

"The squad, as we tended to call ourselves, taught me the ropes. Light showed me the warning signs of when someone's gonna do something stupid, how to pick locks, how to escape prison. Robbery isn't a movie parlor trick, he always said. Mel sometimes would pound metal to try to not pound the face of the first person he saw on the street; he taught me the cocktails of metal that work best to make ammo on short notice and that work best to stop it. Cappy took me out with two rifles sometimes; we'd drive until nothing was around and take turns shooting at a sandbag on the ground a few hundred feet away. It was - it was perfect, back then.

"Light was always special to me. He had something in him I admired, this spark. And I guess he saw something in me too, his little Rain..." Bushranger can't stop the sad smile that inches up her cheeks. "Dating a criminal who's more wanted than you are is odd, to say the least. Dinner and a movie looked more like potato chips and James Dean on a CD again with a gun in someone's hand in case something happened. But it was what it was. And it was perfect, back then."

She sighs, feeling herself deflate in her armor. "We fucked it."

"What happened?" She's almost forgotten Queen's around; it feels more like crying in a confessional than talking to who should be her biggest enemy.

"We _fucked_ it all up." Bushy repeats, tensing up. "Everything. We fucked everything." A pause. "It was going so well, too... I'm wasting your time, I'll make it quick."

"You're not," Queen reaffirms, offering a slight smile as she tightens her grip on her companion.

"Sure I'm not," the criminal mutters, taking a inhale before continuing. "We'd pulled off another heist. Bullets flying, Cap's spraying down anything that moves outside the car. I feel the wheels turning out of control, I know something's been hit and we gotta lose the cops behind us. I bank a dangerously sharp 180, hit the gas and gun it at them. They get scared and ditch the car; I spin ours around again before they crash, tell Cap to go offense. He pops his upper half out the window, firing crazy. Bang. Bang. He groans in pain, falling back inside. Something in Mel just snaps; he grabs the automatic from Cap, cranks down the window, and starts spraying bullets everywhere. Light's yelling that it's done, we're good, nobody's moving, and I stop the car.

"Mel jumps out, walks over to the nearest corpse, starts fucking beating it up like it's a punching bag or some shit. Light and I go to check on Cap. It's bad, he's bleeding bad. Light tells me to get Mel, and I do, and Light says the injuries are real bad, that we can't fix them at home. It's either we turn Cap into the hospital and the police or we watch him die."

Bushy takes a deep breath before continuing. "Mel's crying, he's saying we can't just let Cap suffer, he'll take Cap to the hospital and Light and I should go take the money and book it. Light's telling him it's not an option, he knows Mel's gonna sell us out for a lighter sentence for him and Cap. They start arguing; Cap's barely conscious and he's begging for Mel to take him out. Light hears it and he heads over. He knows Mel won't do it, so he does. Sticks his pistol on Cap's throat, bang..." She shivers. "Mel was gonna snap Light in half, I had to get between them to try to calm them down... We decide to have Light drive the way home 'cause Mel's unfit to drive and I can't have them killing each other in the backseat. They're still screaming at each other when we pull up to the house. Mel says he's not comin' back, storms out, takes a shovel and Cap's body and walks off. Light doesn't even say anything, just falls on the couch and passes out...

"Mel comes back at two in the morning. He thinks I won't hear him, but I do. I can't sleep. He spends an hour or so beating something up in his forge and then it's silent." She lets out a barking laugh, dropping her head. "I shoulda _known!"_

"Known what?" Queen asks, reminding Bushranger of her presence once more by the grounding in her right hand.

"You never leave a brother behind. You follow him. I walk in on him, he's - he's on the wall, choked himself out with a handkerchief around his neck..." Bushy finds herself smiling - _don't cry, don't be weak, don't rust up your helmet._ "He leaves me a note, says _Rain, you should get out 'fore shit hits the fan._ I don't listen; I'm stupid. I stay with Light, or Light stays with me. It's just him and me. He loves me, doesn't he? He cares! Nobody else does...

"We follow Mel's steps to Cap's grave, dump his body in too. Light says it doesn't matter to him, but it does. I know it does. He starts changing. We used to go out twice a month, different cities each time, to do our stuff; he bumps it up to weekly and starts retargeting. Light begs me to do more than that. When I refuse, he goes out himself just to shoot something or someone. He stops caring. He grows sloppy.

"One day, Light pulls up, runs inside. He says the police are coming. They put a tracker on his car, he didn't notice. He's half-gone already. Rain, he's crying, _stay with me._ We're fucked. I'm about to tell him we can surrender together when he pulls out the bomb.

_"Stay with me, Rain._

"You're gonna get us killed...

 _"We were born to die,_ he says, takes a step closer. _Rain, you can't leave me like this. You don't leave a brother behind._

"I can walk out, I remind him. I don't have blood on my hands. I can lie and say I was manipulated into helping. I can still walk, Light..." Her voice is shaking now as she recounts the conversation word-for-word.

"He - he _changes,_ then. He steps forward, pins me to the wall, the bomb's pressing into my stomach. _Rain, you bitch, we go out together. I'm not dying alone._

"Take your shotgun and snipe some cops on the way out, Light. I don't want to die here.

"There's a cocking of a gun - it's on my forehead. He's not gonna kill me, right? I don't know anymore. What does he want? If he cared, he'd let me go. He doesn't care, does he? Did he ever? Was I meant to be the idiot student he could fuck every now and then, someone whose strings he'd pull into place?

 _"Rain, stay,_ he begs again. _You can't leave me here, you piece of shit. You can't. You can't..._

"I - I honestly don't remember what happens next. I think I sock him in the gut, we start fighting, the sirens are in the distance, and next thing I know I'm standing there and he's on the floor and I've got his gun in my hands. He's not walking out of here; we both know that. But I'm not going to let him kill me too.

"Shooting a sandbag for fun isn't the same as shooting a person so you live... I can't let him kill me. I - I _can't..._

"The sirens are louder and louder and I'm staring at Light's body on the floor. I can't get out now. I'm fucked. We're all fucked. And the bomb goes off...

"I wake up. They say I shouldn't have, that I was lucky the worst that happened was burn scarring. They've got years and years worth of charges on me and there are lawyers out the door wanting to take the case so they get in the news. We spend the better part of a year in court; the lawyer I liked most - she's real good, her name's Alien and she doesn't take shit from anyone - she's built this whole case about how I was kidnapped and abused and forced to help the squad or I'd die and shit. We win; she's ecstatic and I'm just happy to still be breathing.

"I spend the next few months drifting. I don't have shit except my freedom and nobody's gonna take me to work. I end up at the shore, standing there and watching the waves. There's nothing left for me. Light was right - I should be _dead._ I look and feel the part. I - I _killed_ Cap 'cause I was stupid, I killed Cap and Mel and Light too... And they say I'm not the bad guy?

"I look at the ocean some more, imagine drowning. Nobody would find me, right? Nobody would care. I don't matter."

Bushranger doesn't notice she's been trembling until Queen pulls her up off the bed and into a tight hug, still holding her hand. She doesn't notice she's been crying until the monarch whispers a "What's next?" into the air.

"Something - something keeps me tethered to the sand. There's a reason I'm still here. _Fuck it,_ I tell myself. I'm gonna do the only damn thing I'm good at. Nobody can tell me what to do. Nobody can call me weak again. I'm gonna walk down the street and people are gonna _hide._ I'm gonna do it better than Light ever could. There's nothing else I can do, and I'm itching for my next hit anyways.

"I pull out Mel's note - I've kept it ever since he died. He's dead. I'm not. It's time to move on. I flip the thing to its back, spend a few minutes looking for a pen some dipshit left in the sand, then write a short but sweet suicide note. They shouldn't know it's me. If they do, I'll be super fucked.

"I pin the thing to some beach shack's door and disappear completely. When I reappear in society several months later, I'm not Rain or Thunderbolt or anyone else anymore. I'm _Bushranger._ I put full-body armor back in fashion. I rob banks like it's my business, assassinate rich fucks like nobody's business, and I don't take shit from anyone."

There's a comfortable silence over them for a while before Queen finally speaks. "That Light guy really wasn't good for you."

"He wasn't," Bushy admits, closing her eyes. "But it felt right. Nothing else did..." The conversation tapers off again; she focuses on their heartbeats syncing up, echoing softly through her armor.

If they could stay like this forever, suspended in amber like some prehistoric insect, Bushy doesn't think she'd mind. It's safe here. She's safe here.

Nobody can hurt her anymore.

It'll be alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, uh... She really did just crack open onto me. Hey, on the bright side, at least Queen's there to give her the hug she desperately needs.


	4. Sequence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 3, featuring an unwelcome revelation and an attempt to deal with it.

"It's the finals," Dragonfly mumbles, fluttering her wings nervously. "It's the finals... I'm scared!"

Puppet, sitting next to her, grins. "There's no reason to worry, milady," he quips. "It's not like you're going to die if you lose. Besides, everyone knows we're good singers! It's a battle of the best."

Frillneck nods, somehow upside-down on the couch - Bushy doesn't question it. "Yeah! It's not like any of us will be laughed at for going out now." He's typing something on his phone, probably to the groupchat. The incessant buzzing in Bushy's pocket confirms that theory.

Queen smiles to herself, toying with her miniskirt today - there's practically an aura of worry coming off her. "Yep," she agrees, though it's reluctant.

Right. The only person who _actually_ had to worry about negative opinions. Well, Bushranger shouldn't count herself out of that group, but she's also ceased to give a fuck. So.

Usher-Host-Man pops his snake head out the door again, grinning like the Cheshire Cat on MDMA. "Group A! Are you ready for your finals?" At the positive reactions from the finalists (because Bushy ain't giving that cunt the time of day), he continues. "Have you all gotten ready for your group performance? We're going to do three practice runs to make sure we've got the choreo down. No talking allowed!"

Wait. Group - aw shit. She _really_ should've read the stupid e-mails. Well, tonight's gonna be big on the caffeine.

The quartet head out to the stage while Bushy desperately tries to find where the fuck Hostman said anything about a group performance in her inbox. As the song, _Can't Stop the Feeling,_ begins for real, she finds the e-mail and immediately wishes she didn't.

What the fuck is _Came Here for Love?_ And what _possessed_ the _idiots_ to try to split it in four? And _why_ were they all going to - this singing competition _sucks_. Fuck Queen for dragging her into this, really.

Bushranger looks up from her phone - the four finalists are finishing up with the true run, their rank and file dissolving for a more fluid movement. She grins at Queen's defiant high note to end the song. Attagirl.

Dragonfly stays on stage to start her competition song; the other three return to the lounge. The song she's got today is familiar; Bushy finds herself cheering _"Now the party don't start 'til I walk in!"_ with Dragonfly as the latter rolls into the ending refrain. She catches Queen's knowing chuckle and grins in return, fiddling with the safety hook on her helmet. "It's catchy," she complains, looking over to Frilly and Puppet, seventeen rounds deep into what seems to be the ultimate rock-paper-scissors tournament.

Her companion leans towards her slightly to knock on her helmet like it's a door. God, the ringing is annoying. "I know," Queen replies.

Bushy tugs her visor downward, hoping to quell the pseudo-tinnitus; it clears up after a moment and she sighs, spotting Dragonfly coming back. "You're up next, aren't ya?"

"That I am," Queen nods, pulling herself up and stretching her shoulders back. "I hope I'm good enough to make it through..."

Before Bushranger consciously knows it, she's leapt off the couch as well, taking Queen's hand in her own, giving it a quick squeeze. "You'll be just fine," she offers as some sort of encouragement. Looking back, maybe _just fine_ wasn't top-tier motivation, but it seemed to do the trick.

The royal smiles back. "It'll be alright," she echoes.

"Kick ass out there, darlin'." Bushy lets Queen go, taking a step back. She waves her off to the stage, falling into her corner seat and raising an eyebrow at the setup on the screen. And so it begins again.

The monarch's got more of a spark to her tone this time as compared to before, she notes. Where the first two performances were eerier, more withdrawn, this one is bolder, provocative. Bushranger decides she quite enjoys the "fuck off" vibes. They hit the bridge, and the criminal finds herself shoving her hands in her pockets, biting her tongue hard. _Stay grounded, damn it._

There's an annoying ringing on her helmet again - Bushy opens an eye to find Frillneck looking down at her with a grin that spells trouble. "They're not taking her away from you, you know."

"Shut the _fuck_ up, Frills," she mutters, shifting into a more upright position and firing a glare back at him. "Or I'm gonna rip off each of your scales individually and make myself a new coat."

Before he can reply, there's a knock at the door to the contestant lounge. Frilly's expression changes instantaneously from coy and playing to something most akin to an excited puppy; he dashes to the door in a few quick leaps and swings it open, crushing the person walking in with a tight hug. "Wiz! You made it!"

Said Wizard chuckles awkwardly, taking a step back. "Have you heard of people needing oxygen?"

"You mean I take your breath away?" _Damn, he's smooth._

Wizard doesn't deign to reply to that, instead taking a seat on the middle section of the couch, next to Bushy. Puppet slides into the corner, knowing full well what's going on here; this leaves Frillneck the other middle seat, which he takes.

At that moment, Usher appears from the stage door again - he opens his mouth to speak, then shuts it. He spends a second analyzing the blue presence on the couch. "Wh - "

Queen skirts past him, waving to Wizard as Frillneck replies, cutting Hostman off. "I don't see the problem," he explains. "Queen gets to bring her girlfriend. Why can't I?"

Wiz turns an even brighter shade of red at that, coughing into his sleeve. Usher looks between the two for a long moment, then promptly gives the fuck up. "You're up next," he concedes.

Frilly laughs, hopping up to saunter past Hostman to the stage. "Did he just - " the new addition to the group mumbles.

Bushranger wheezes, looking over to Queen for a split-second before promptly falling back into her usual lean on the royal. "Yeah," she manages to gasp out. "He did."

"That man is going to be the death of me," Wizard complains, then quiets down as the first notes emanate from the television screen.

Holy _shit._ He's fucking _good._

Not that she doubted it, but this song proves why he's here. Bushy closes her eyes, focusing on the music. Damn...

_"Enlargen your world... Mad world..."_

She blinks once, twice, realizing it's come to an end. Wow. Wizard's smiling dopily at the screen, leaning back in his seat. Puppet whistles; Dragonfly seems even more anxious than before, if that's possible. She's a walking bundle of nerves, huh.

Bushy shifts slightly, then reverts back - Queen seems to be napping on her helmet. She shouldn't wake her. _Why does she care?_

The royal had wasted her time listening to her blabber on about her life last night. It's the least she can do.

Frilly returns, exhilarated; he grins, flopping down on the couch. "Did you like it?"

Everyone knows this is directed to one person and one person only. Wizard smiles, tapping his foot on the floor. "That was amazing!" He looks to Frillneck. "We could duet a song together sometime - if you want, of course?"

"Get a room," Bushranger mumbles, glaring at the two lovebirds on the couch. Wiz flashes red again while Frilly flips her off.

Puppet stands, giggling at the antics of the others as he heads for the stage. He pops his joints while the lights dim to a red.

Oh, for the love of God... _This_ was the song that made Bushy empty a cartridge into her last car's radio. And it's back.

She makes a mental note to figure out how to most effectively throttle Puppet while she tries not to listen to the somewhat slurred Spanish. It's evident that the man wasn't a polyglot.

It's almost better than the original because the original sucks so bad. But this is also somehow worse because _Despacito_ is _not_ meant to be sung like Verdi. In sum, it's an experience that makes Bushy wish she _did_ drown that night. At least she wouldn't have had to go through... this.

_Stop thinking about them. It's over._

She shifts slightly, careful not to disturb the weight on her.

_It's over, Rain. Get a fucking grip._

Bushranger sighs, watching the door. After a moment, Puppet reappears, grinning like a madman. "How was it?"

"A clusterfuck of everything I hate about the world," she mutters to herself, even as Frilly and Dragonfly congratulate him on a performance well done. Looking up to make sure everyone's distracted, she slides her phone out of her pocket, discreetly checking on the votes.

As she'd expected, Frillneck has the commanding lead, with Queen in a comfortable second place. What she's not expecting is Puppet to be beating Dragonfly for third. Bushy drums her fingers on her phone screen.

Just diverting a few votes would let Dragonfly go through. At the same time... Would it be too obvious? She'd already seen people complaining online that Goldfish was "robbed". Which, you know, she deserves for being a piece of shit. But the point stands. At the same time, she was _not_ in the mood to listen to more songs from that Puppet that made her want to shove her gun in her mouth.

She's still watching her screen, stuck in paralysis by analysis, when Hostman reappears. "The results are in!"

_Fuck._

Bushy turns off her phone screen, nudging Queen with her shoulder. "Hey, wake up," she whispers.

The monarch blearily opens an eye. "Huh?"

"It's elimination time," she supplies, biting back a grin at Queen's state of disorientedness. The royal nods to herself, pulling herself off the couch after a long moment.

Bushy knows what's coming, so she's not surprised that Dragonfly is eliminated. Poor girl. On stage, Usher explains that the final three will be moving on to the merger the following Monday and will meet the top three from Group B there, as if that wasn't common knowledge at this point. He's probably saying all of this shit for the television audience. Fuckers don't have an attention span greater than seven seconds. Sheep.

Once Hostman's decided he's listened to his own voice enough, the trio of sort-of-but-not-really-winners return to the lounge. Wizard plants his staff on the ground to help himself up, but before he can speak, Frilly does. "After last week's fun, I decided we should do something more private today."

Bushranger deadpans at him from the couch. "That sounds like a weird invitation to a strip club," she points out.

Wiz chokes on air again as Frillneck rolls his eyes. "So you're saying you _don't_ want to hang out at my place?"

"Depends on what _your place_ means," Bushy effortlessly replies.

"My apartment. You know, where I live?"

"That shithole?" She savors the dual glares she receives from Queen and Frilly.

"What she means by that is _Yes, we're delighted to come, thank you for the kind invitation,"_ the royal explains, crossing her arms.

Before Bushy can correct her, Puppet pipes up. "Is there food involved?"

"Can you even digest anything?" the criminal mumbles.

Notwithstanding her comment, Frillneck nods. "I got chips. And ice cream."

"And my interest," Puppet adds. _Mooch._

"You coming with, Wiz?" the host asks, sporting a trademark grin.

"If you'd have me, I don't see why not..." The Group B member trails off, spinning his staff in his hand.

"We're taking the minibus again!" Frilly yells in the general direction of the stage, leading the way to the door. Bushranger finally deigns to stand up, shoving her hands in her pockets as she follows just behind the rambunctious lizard.

Bushy spends the entire car ride getting pissed off. Her silver lining is that she insists on driving; outside of that, she's privy to the rematch of the greatest rock-paper-scissors showdown and then Frillneck retelling the Thylacine story _again,_ even if everyone in the van's already heard it. Queen's in the passenger seat, and Bushy gets the feeling from how she's scrolling through her phone that she, too, regrets taking this invite.

They eventually pull up to Frilly's apartment complex; Bushranger counts no fewer than seventeen times she's threatened to shoot Frillneck and Puppet and hide their bodies. Currently, wooden idiot is singing _Despacito_ like he's trying to break the world record for most annoying cunt. Judging by how much this makes Bushy want to snap his neck, he's got a good shot.

The criminal parks sharply, turning to glare at the rear passengers, who're bounced forward. "We're _here,"_ she announces.

"Thanks for the lift," Frilly grins, sliding out - this only makes Bushranger want to end his life more. She pops open her door, hopping the half-step down. Without checking to see if the others have disembarked, she locks the car. Luckily for them, they have. Frilly leads the way up several flights of stairs, fishing a key out of his pocket, then stops in front of a door. _1217,_ Bushy notes, sliding the number into her _If shit hits the fan I can probably hide out at this place for a week_ list.

"Welcome home!" Frilly pops the door open, stepping inside. Bushranger hangs at the back of the people who'd punched their tickets to see whatever their host had cooked up, looking left and right to examine the place with scrutiny.

Judging by the faint odor of dirty clothes covered by that of way too much air freshener, she concludes that the current state of tidiness was only for his guests. Frillneck bustles around, filling bowls with snacks; carrying too many to be reasonable, he deposits them on the table in front of the couch.

The quintet thus stand there, all looking at said couch, which only has three places to sit. The code of friend honor dictates that none of them can sit there; if they did, they would forever be branded the jackass of the group. This is basic intuition; even Bushy knows not to mess with it. So they all stand there for an awkwardly long time, waiting for Frilly to pick up on the cushion dilemma. Surprisingly, he doesn't; if he does, he doesn't mention it.

Puppet's the one to become the group jackass, doubly so because he chooses the middle seat while knowing full well that there are two couples (of sorts). Frilly loops around to the front of the couch, evidently calculating something. Bushranger rolls her eyes, speaking up to avoid the absolute pain that is watching the host's bluescreening at carrying the one.

"If I sit on the armrest, you four should be able to squeeze, right?"

Apparently, that's a solution the idiots never considered. With some wibbling and wobbling, they manage to fit. Bushy leans onto the armrest next to Queen, transitioning into a stable seat. Frillneck turns on the television, which they soon realize is a PC hooked up to a TV screen.

"Everyone has their phone?" he asks. "I was thinking we could play a cool game I've been meaning to try out." At the affirmative replies from his friends, he pops open something called Steam, then boots up _Fibbage 3._ Finding the _Enough About You_ button in the lobby, he hits it. "Room code OGWB," Frilly proclaims, even though it literally says that right on his screen.

Bushy fishes her phone out from her pocket, heading to the website. She enters the code and her name, hitting play. A glance up to the screen - their avatars all seem to be some sort of plants-and-eyes combination. Huh. Thankfully, nobody's called themselves anything obscene or generally stupid.

The game's meant to be a "get to know your friends better" type of thing. Honestly, it feels more like "learn to lie and figure out what's true", which sits perfectly fine with Bushy. She keeps track of what she's learning about her - friends? Are they?

In either case, she's not quite sure what to do with the information that Puppet once got in an accident involving three cars, a basketball, and a pack of gum.

It's growing late by the time Frilly finally turns off the TV. Bushranger takes a moment to glance back at the couch. The other three had tapped out during the festivities: Queen had drifted off hours before with her head in Bushy's lap, then Wizard had passed out onto Frillneck's shoulder, and finally Puppet had fallen asleep only a few minutes ago.

The host turns as much as he's able to look to the criminal perched on the armrest; then, he takes his phone out. _Bzzz._ "Cunt," Bushy mutters, fishing hers out of her pocket as well.

_Leliyn, today at 02:05_

_hey_

_i dont wanna wake up the others_

She sighs sharply. Hey, at least the man had some sort of sense.

_Storm Warning, today at 02:06_

_the fuck do you want?_

Bushy glances over once more - he texts half a page, then deletes it, tries again.

_Leliyn, today at 02:11_

_are you ready for tomorrow?_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:11_

_when you mention it, no_

_I had no idea we'd have a group song_

_Leliyn, today at 02:12_

_mood tho_

The fuck does that mean?

_Storm Warning, today at 02:12_

_so what's the big deal?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:13_

_uh_

_can i come with you tomorrow?_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:14_

_ask your boyfriend_

Frillneck coughs rather loudly, his frills flashing upwards on the side Wiz isn't sleeping on. Score.

_Leliyn, today at 02:15_

_were not dating_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:15_

_yet_

_I bet you'll be fucking by the finale_

_Leliyn, today at 02:18_

_shut up_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:18_

_hey, you wanted to talk to me_

_and I assume it's not because of Wizard_

_Leliyn, today at 02:19_

_..._

_Storm Warning, today at 02:19_

_I'm not stupid_

_so what's really up?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:20_

_give me a minute to think abt how to explain it_

Bushy drums her fingers on her phone case, sliding onto Twitter to see what everyone was obsessing over. As expected, it's a flurry of angry comments about the show; for her sake, she scrolls past. (Well, mostly. Some of the insults the general tweeting public use are too good to pass up.)

 _Bzzz._ She raises an eyebrow, going back to the messaging app.

_Leliyn, today at 02:31_

_is she okay?_

Huh? What did he -

_Storm Warning, today at 02:31_

_who?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:32_

_queen_

_i know its not my place to be asking abt it all_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:33_

_she's alive? what do you mean?_

_I mean, she has to deal with me, but outside that_

Frillneck sighs, tapping away. For God's sake, Bushy hopes he actually sends the damn essay he's writing.

_Leliyn, today at 02:36_

_im just worried is all_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:36_

_I can't read minds_

_the fuck you on about?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:38_

_have i told you abt ringtail?_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:39_

_who?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:39_

_thats a no_

_ringers my sister_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:40_

_okay?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:40_

_she uh_

_shes not always been a happy camper_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:41_

_what does any of this have to do with Queen?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:41_

_can you let me get there?_

_ringers had issues_

_i know the signs_

_and i know you might not_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:43_

_spit it out or you're gonna be learning what decomposition is first-hand_

_Leliyn, today at 02:43_

_promise me that if im off by a mile you wont kill me_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:44_

_my contract with the fucks who make the show strictly prohibits it but yeah sure_

_I'll wait until after the finale to blow your brains out_

A quiet yet tense chuckle from Frillneck - hey, at least she tried.

_Leliyn, today at 02:45_

_have you ever heard of an eating disorder?_

Bushranger furrows her brow at the screen. A what now? She composes no fewer than three snarky replies before discarding them all; whatever shit Frilly was going on about, it seemed to not be the type of thing to joke about.

Either that or he's been pussy-footing a benign topic for the past half hour.

_Storm Warning, today at 02:46_

_?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:46_

_as i thought_

_how long have you two been together?_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:47_

_maybe three months before the show?_

That should fit with when she's been last seen.

_Leliyn, today at 02:47_

_okay_

_i know this sounds stupid but_

_has she always been this way?_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:48_

_what way?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:49_

_the "ill order literally one piece of sushi and not end up even touching it" way?_

Now that he mentions it...

_Storm Warning, today at 02:51_

_you mean the "here's a giant bowl of popcorn but I'm not gonna touch it until you do" way?_

_and the "I'll end up cracking at fuck o'clock in the morning when you've fallen asleep" way?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:52_

_so its not just public stuff?_

_that would cross out toxophobia_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:52_

_toxo what now?_

_Leliyn, today at 02:52_

_toxophobia_

_which i was thinking could be possible_

_in simple terms the fear of getting poisoned_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:53_

_huh_

_Leliyn, today at 02:53_

_but if its the same at home then thats even less likely_

_and instead makes something more along the lines of anorexia more likely_

_again im not a doctor_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:55_

_I don't give a fuck what you are_

_if something's wrong with Queen I need to know_

Bushy realizes how tightly she's been holding her phone and forces herself to loosen her grip.

_Leliyn, today at 02:56_

_okay calm down there_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:56_

_I am calm_

_Leliyn, today at 02:57_

_youre not_

_i can feel it over here_

_shes not gonna die if we can fix this_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:58_

_hold the fuck up_

_since when was this ever a we thing_

_and more importantly you're telling me she can die???????_

_Leliyn, today at 02:59_

_i shouldnt have brought it up_

_Storm Warning, today at 02:59_

_will she be okay?????_

_I don't care what you should have done Frill, is she gonna be alright???????_

_Leliyn, today at 03:00_

_if im even right abt my suspicions_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:00_

_what can I do???????_

_Leliyn, today at 03:01_

_for right now?_

_act like nothings wrong_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:01_

_you're ignoring the fact that something is obviously wrong_

_Leliyn, today at 03:02_

_i dont even know if im right_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:02_

_assume you fucking are goddammit_

_what's the diagnosis Dr Frillneck?_

_you know about this shit I don't you're right what's wrong with her_

_Leliyn, today at 03:03_

_for the last time im not a doctor and i have no idea whats going on_

_but if i had to hazard a guess and assuming something is wrong its probably anorexia_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:05_

_English motherfucker do you speak it?_

_Leliyn, today at 03:06_

_in a terrible explanation_

_mostly mentally based desire to be thinner leads to self starvation_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:07_

_fuck_

_Leliyn, today at 03:07_

_its as shitty as it sounds_

_ringer was in and out of institutions for the better part of a year before she started to get it under control_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:09_

_what can I do?_

_I have to be able to do something_

_will putting a gun to her head work?_

_Leliyn, today at 03:09_

_do not do that_

_please_

_do not do that_

Bushranger glances down at Queen, who's still snoozing on her lap. If what Frilly was saying was right...

_Storm Warning, today at 03:10_

_fuck_

_Leliyn, today at 03:10_

_look i could very much be wrong_

_please dont take this as a fact_

_we have no idea_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:11_

_I'd rather go overboard and have it all be okay_

_then pretend nothing's wrong and wake up to a fucking corpse in my bed_

_I'm done with that shit_

_Leliyn, today at 03:11_

_just_

_keep an eye on her okay?_

_if anything happens_

_if anything at all is wrong_

_you can call me_

_i know technically were not allowed to talk and all_

_but you guys are friends to me_

_and if theres anything i can do_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:13_

_okay Frills_

_you have my word_

_if she trips I call you before the ambulance_

_Leliyn, today at 03:14_

_thats a step too far_

_look just get some rest for now_

_youve got a performance in a few hours and passing out on stage is not a good look_

_well figure it out_

_Storm Warning, today at 03:16_

_alright_

She turns off her phone screen, looking to Frilly - he offers her one of those melancholic smiles she's sick and tired of, yet this one is oddly reassuring. "Get some rest," he repeats in a whisper. Bushy nods, leaning on the couch's back and closing her eyes. Her stomach twists and turns in worry. She's eventually able to drift off, but not before the sun comes up.

Why does she care? Queen's nothing more than her alibi. If she were to die and it wasn't Bushy's fault, what could anyone do to her? She could easily forge the royal pardon, pack her bags, and fuck off to Argentina to herd sheep or something.

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Too bad she knows she won't ever use it.

Shouldn't have gotten caught. Goddammit.

God-fucking-dammit.

Bushy glares into the rearview mirror at the menagerie of passengers in the van. "Can you all shut the fuck up?" she growls, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. "My head's fucking spinning as is."

Bushranger's given up on controlling Group A at this point. She'd downed three cups of coffee and something like five granola bars in the morning; to be certain nobody would see her, she'd had to be the first up. Coupled with last night, this meant she was running on an adrenaline and caffeine cocktail that was probably going to kill her before 40. She doesn't want to imagine what she looks like under her helmet, but she can take an educated guess.

Frillneck thankfully cans it, instead texting Puppet his next manifesto as to why adding Spock and lizards to rock-paper-scissors makes for a better experience. Yeah, _everyone_ was apparently invited to this fucking reunion, which only meant two more people who'd watch her fail gloriously on stage.

Bushranger turns a sharp right off the highway, imagines setting the van on fire and destroying everyone in it. The distortion seeps into the edges of her mind, flickering in and out. It would be so easy, too; no witnesses, no nothing, just another mass murder. Steal a boat, fuck off before she's found. His voice, again, honey laced with cyanide. _"Rain, we were born to die. Follow me. It'll be alright. You love me, don't you?"_

No. Stop it. Stay grounded.

Bushy's chewed up half her lip by the time she pulls into the parking lot - by the way Queen's resting her hand on her driver's shoulder, she realizes she's probably been shaking as well. God, she's a fucking mess.

How did anyone still buy it? Queen's, well, the _Queen_. And Bushranger's a fucking Jell-O container next to her. Weak. She's supposed to be the bad guy, the hardened criminal who once killed ten people with two bullets (and the first was a warning shot). Not... _This_. Whatever the hell this was.

Bushy peels herself off the driver's seat, the dull, familiar clank of her armor almost audible as she hits the ground. "Let's move," she glares at Puppet, who's taking his sweet time getting out of the minibus and popping his joints in that annoying way only he can manage. Frillneck paces up next to her, waving off the others. Wizard seems to get the memo, ushering the two Group A members to the contestants' lounge and leaving Bushranger with Frilly.

Once she's sure everyone's gone, she finds herself falling back on the door of the van. It's not because her knees are weak, she lies to herself, it's just more comfortable. Frillneck hooks his thumbs on the pockets of his jacket, leaning next to her, brow creased in concern as his frills rise slightly. "Look," he begins, toying with the fabric of his pocket. "I - "

"Don't fucking apologize," Bushy grunts out, looking over. "Just don't. I've had enough of that shit."

Frilly nods, looking down at the ground - he kicks a pebble, then reaches out to roll it back under his foot. A moment passes in silence. "How're you holding up?"

She shrugs. Normally, she'd lie and tell him she's feeling peachy and that it's an old wound acting up. He's smarter than that, though, even if he did act like a dumbass. "I dunno," Bushranger admits quietly. "I'm just..." She trails off, swallowing the final word.

"Yeah?" Frillneck rubs the back of his neck.

Can she trust him? She supposes he's more trustworthy than Queen; after all, he's not after her head on a stick. Given the fact that she'd told the monarch about the squad, there's no real reason she shouldn't let Frilly know what's going on. He's at least better with this emotional shit than she is.

Admittedly, that doesn't say much, but.

"I'm scared." The confession drops between the two like a corpse in slow-motion. Bushy finds the need to expand on the statement and so continues. "I'm supposed to - I'm supposed to protect her. To keep her safe. How can I do that if I can't even find the piece of shit that's hurting her? What am I supposed to do? Kill God?" She glances over to Frilly, not letting him reply before continuing. "I... She can't. She can't just fucking kill herself like this... I should've noticed something was up sooner..."

Frillneck takes a deep breath. "Bushy," he begins, "We don't even know if we're right about our suspicions. And if we are, it's not a death sentence. We can make it better. It's going to be alright."

"No, it's _not,"_ she grates in reply. "Queen's gonna die on me just like everyone else and I'll be fucked and stood up in the rain 'cause I end up killing everyone who gets close to me." Bushranger takes a sharp inhale at the end of this, realizing she's running out of breath.

As if she should still be breathing. She's a fucking murderer, after all, the lowest of the low. Her criminal record rivals _War and Peace._ Useless. Weak. Downright pathetic.

There's a hand on her shoulder again - Frilly's claws graze her coat in an oddly comforting way. "Hey," he murmurs, "You're not alone."

When's the last time she's heard that? Right. When everything was okay. Now, when nothing's going as it should, it's coming back to haunt her.

Bushy clears her throat after a long moment. "What?"

"You're not alone," Frillneck repeats, watching the slot in her helmet. "I promised you we'd work together, didn't I?"

There's a cloud over his eyes, all too familiar; the smile he's keeping up belies it. It could just be because of the current turn of events, but it seems deeper than that. Bushranger finds her mind wandering. What stories does he keep to himself? There are parts of her life she's kept under lock and key ever since they happened, parts she's taking to the grave. It'd be stupid to assume that Frilly's an open book, even if he does act like it sometimes.

But a team. Working _together._ She's tempted to flip off the Group A contestant, mutter some snarky comment and saunter away to the lounge. Bushy doesn't _do_ teams. Not anymore, not after the last draughts of her moon's shine dripped out of the barrels. She's always figured her shit out solo. If there's nobody to fuck you over, you're safer.

 _"You never leave a brother behind,"_ Light's voice whispers in her ear, right in the spot that makes her heart weigh itself down with nitroglycerin. He's right, isn't he? And... As much as she's loath to admit it, Queen's the closest thing she's got to a brother in arms. She _knows,_ she knows about her, and that should be a death sentence, but they're both locked into the lies. So, despite how much Bushy wants to change her... _companion's_ BMI with an armory's worth of ammunition, she needs her safe. Alive. She can't leave the monarch behind.

"...Team," Bushranger agrees, swallowing the lump in her throat she didn't know existed. She might know everything about stick-ups, but she knows nothing about pin-ups. Frillneck does. An invisible weight lifts itself from her shoulders - maybe it _will_ be okay. (Probably not, but it's the thought that counts, right?) She scans Frilly with a cursory glance, then decides she can throw him at least a couple meters if he fucks this up. Enough to punt him off the Sydney Harbor Bridge, in any case. "What's the plan?"

He looks off to the door of the stage, thinking for a moment. "You guys have dinner together, right?"

She nods. "Most nights. Sometimes, foreign fucks come over and she's gotta deal with 'em, which means I can't be around." Making sure her visor's balanced just right to not reveal anything has been a challenge these past months, but Bushy's at a perfect batting average and she's got no intentions to change that.

"Alright," Frillneck nods. "Get the kitchen staff to start making high-protein, high-calorie stuff. If she's not having that much, we've got to jam-pack as much nutrition in as possible... Besides, we're still not completely sure if everything lines up, and we don't want to go in with false accusations."

Given the fact that this is the same man who once went to the emergency room after shoving no less than seventeen M&Ms up his nose, it's shocking how coherent the strategy is. Bushy pulls out her phone, pops open her memo app, and jots it down. She notes the time - they're already about ten minutes late. Not that she cares, but Wizard's supposed to perform first today and Frilly's probably dying to see his "boyfriend" on stage again. Fucking lovebirds. "We should get going," she states, turning off her screen. "I'll keep ya posted?"

Bushranger pulls herself off the minivan, taking a step towards the doors of the studio - a hand's on her wrist. _"Rain, don't leave me here."_ She yanks back, eyes wide, and whirls around.

Right. It's just Frillneck. "We're going to save her." He's let Bushy go, thankfully, and has returned to hooking his thumbs on his pockets. "I promise."

Normally, promises get broken within a few minutes of making them. That's the standard in the industry. But there's something in Frilly's eyes, what Light always called a "spark of confidence". The intensity of his gaze makes her nervous; she knows. "I believe you," the criminal offers up after a second.

Frilly's somber smile morphs into a more lackadaisical grin with a twitch around the edges. He's still watching the slot in her helmet, she notes. "Awesome, great." The words are half-hearted. As Bushy turns away again to head to the lounge, she finds herself doubting her... friend? again. Maybe he's just looking to get to know her and Queen for bragging rights.

That illusion shatters in only a few moments. When she's almost out of earshot, Frillneck mutters something he thinks she can't hear.

_"If I couldn't save Ringer... I'll at least save Queen."_

She'll keep that secret with the wind.

Usher-Host-Man gives Bushranger a glare as she slams the door open and walks into the lounge, beelining for the corner seat next to Queen. She replies with a middle finger as she settles into the couch cushion, a shit-eating grin lurking under her helmet.

"You brought guests again," the snake narrows his gaze.

"The couch has room," Bushranger shrugs, even as Frillneck now slides inside, perching on the end next to Wizard, tentative. Kitten's in the other corner, curled up in a ball; Puppet's sitting between her and the monarch. On Bushy's other side is Cactus, who's adjusting her pot around herself. The criminal's given up on explaining anything to do with the plant contestant. If pressed, she'd probably claim it to be witchcraft.

In any case, Usher realizes what Bushy already knows: Controlling Group A is a fruitless endeavor. He sighs, standing from the end next to Cactus. "Group B..." It's telling how much the Tuesday group appreciates Hostman, given the Monday group is the one that's louder and more pumped up (though that could just be chalked up to Frilly and Puppet being Frilly and Puppet). "Are you ready for your group number?"

Kitten nods energetically, hopping up. Wizard looks to Bushranger, who shrugs; she can sense his serious doubt about the idea. Frilly pulls on his boyfriend-to-be's sleeve, whispering in Wiz's ear. Judging by the way the Group B contestant rolls his eyes, it's probably something stupid. He detaches from the hyperactive Frillneck, following the others to the stage.

The test runs are relatively easy; Bushy finds herself muttering the lyrics under her breath to make sure she's got them down. After three trials, Usher decides they can go for the real thing. Enter stage left.

The group performance surprisingly doesn't suck as much as she expected it to. Kitten kicks it off, then Wizard, and after Bushy's turn is Cactus's solo couplet. The cameras spin around, and they're expected to follow, which causes Kitten to get her arm entangled in her candy necklace like an idiot; she plays it off really well, though. All in all, Bushranger would much rather be sticking up a bank, but this is a close second on the list of activities that she could _actually_ do. She could get used to this, she supposes.

Once the television audience has enough of all four of them on stage, Hostman announces Wizard to be singing first. Good. At least it wasn't her. The criminal slips off stage, the other two Group B girls lagging behind. She pops open the door to the lounge and immediately regrets it.

Frillneck and Puppet are practically crying as they gasp for air with stupidly wide grins, looking at something on the former's phone. Queen, too, is attempting to keep a poker face and failing miserably at it, raising a hand to cover her mouth as she chuckles. The twins of chaos look up to her and begin laughing _harder,_ as if that were possible.

"The fuck?" Bushy rolls her eyes invisibly, sauntering over to her seat and falling back in it.

Frilly coughs, finally taking in enough oxygen to form a coherent sentence. "You're so - _tiny!"_ The last part is punctuated with a sharp inhale - he shows his phone screen to the others. Ah, so he'd taken a picture of them at the end together.

And Bushy _is_ small compared to the other three. In her defense, they _have_ to all be taking either steroids or Miracle-Gro. "I will _snap your neck,"_ she growls nevertheless.

"If you can reach it," Frillneck quips back.

Bushranger finds herself grinning wildly. So the game is back. "Awful cocky words for someone within firing distance," she replies, pulling out her gun and spinning it on her finger. The distortion seizes at her peripherals, _it wouldn't be a bad idea to blow this place up, eh, Rain?_

Get a grip. Bushy slides her pistol back in its holster, consciously trying to ignore the fire that draws ever closer at each blink of her eyes. Frilly's canned it, which can only mean Wizard's about to begin.

As she's come to expect from the magical man, the performance floors everyone on the couch. Frillneck's smiling like a fool in love, Kitten's singing along, Puppet's jaw appears to be broken from how it's hanging agape, Cactus seems visibly scared for her life now, and even Queen's wondering aloud who Wizard's been taking voice lessons from. He's an absolute shoo-in for the next round.

This only means that Bushy's even more on the line now. She pulls herself off the couch, passing Wizard as she heads to the door. The criminal doesn't look back to see Frillneck laughing his ass off and congratulating Wiz, instead opening the door and walking out to the stage.

If she's headed home today, it's going to be on her own terms. No derpy guys in the background doing flips, no choreo routine that feels like a cardiac arrest simulation. Just her. (Well, and the lights Queen had insisted on adding in when she'd called the production crew to explain the setup. God, that woman was gonna be the death of her.)

Bushy brushes a hand on the lampposts, making certain that they weren't rigged to collapse on top of her during the performance. Usher hands her the microphone. The first note sounds. It's go time.

_"I look up from the ground to see your sad and teary eyes; you look away from me, and I see there's somethin' you're tryna hide and I - reach for your hand, but it's cold, you pull away again, and I'm wonderin', what's on your mind..."_

Every second takes ten.

Every step, every flick of her coat, calculated. Down to the millimeter.

This one's personal. It's a vendetta, seething, deep in her blood. A lament, a wish she'd never agreed to all of his charms and the dimple in his smile. Maybe minimum wage would have been better. She'd have gotten caught at the bank, sentenced to a few months for robbery. No big deal, really. Woolies would have taken her. Life would have been normal. She wouldn't have had to treat every day like it was going to be her last.

But is that really what she wanted?

No. She wouldn't have gotten to this. Maybe she'd end up seeing the Queen on television; maybe, if she were exceedingly lucky, the royal would come to visit the dying town she'd have chained herself to. A passing glance would be the start and end of any sort of twisted camaraderie they'd share.

As she hits the bridge, Bushy finds herself wondering what would have happened to everyone else, then. If that Koala would have taken her place on this stage.

Would Queen have gone out in tenth? Well, probably. It was clear that Goldfish had nestled her knife into the perfect spot and twisted it. What would all of the Twitter birds have said? Bushranger knows that the royal pays entirely too much attention to what trolls with keyboards think. She'd likely have been devastated. And that would've probably worsened what's already wrong...

No. She's not going to dwell on that particular what-if. She's not losing anyone else, not if she can help it, god _dammit!_

Would Frilly have met Wizard? Probably, she figures. Frills would easily make it to the merger and so would Wiz. But maybe not - maybe one or the other would have been knocked out earlier. What she does know is that, by the way the groupchat buzzes nonstop and the conversations she's had and read through, the top eight were becoming close friends. That probably wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been around.

Bushy figures that it's better this way - she takes a quick inhale to pull out the long notes at the tail end of the song. So she fucked up, and a lot, at that. But she doesn't regret a damn thing. Not if it led her to this stage and these people. Bushranger can almost find it in herself to forgive Light for it all, since it brought her here. (Almost. He's still a massive cunt, and that's not gonna change.)

Yeah, it'll be alright. For the first time, Bushy can actually believe it.

The judges' fabricated praise for the performance deflects off her helmet; she stands there, waiting for them to shut up and let her get back to the lounge. Finally, she's allowed to escape. The criminal shoves her hands in her coat's pockets, nodding at Cactus, who, having opened the door for her, loiters in the doorway, waiting for her stage to be set up. Bushy then passes her, head down, and meanders through the hallway. She pops out at the lounge, finally glancing back up.

Puppet looks like he's seen a ghost. He stares at her for a long moment before letting out a whistle. "Is everyone here better than us?" he complains, side-eyeing Frillneck.

Said fellow Group A member shakes his head. "Cactus ain't all that, between you and me." He, too, now looks to Bushranger. "Damn. Didn't know you could belt like _that!"_

She shrugs, tipping her helmet slightly to get a good look at Queen, whose expression reminds her of late nights with James Dean again. "...I didn't know I could, either," she admits, flopping back in her corner seat next to the monarch, who rests an arm encouragingly on her smaller companion's shoulders, pulling out her phone. _Bzzz._

Bushy can't suppress the light chuckle that bubbles from her chest as she fishes in her coat pocket.

_Musetta, today at 20:04_

_Are you feeling better?_

_Storm Warning, today at 20:05_

_yeah_

_I think I just needed to let all that out_

_was it really that good?_

_or is everyone just saying so because I'm armed_

_Musetta, today at 20:07_

_You did great out there <3_

Bushranger exhales slowly, consciously ignoring how her helmet's fogging up, and turns off her phone screen, looking to the television.

Oh, what the _fuck..._ The criminal shakes her head, unsure if what she's watching is actually happening. It is, unfortunately. A fucking potted plant is on national television singing about touching herself.

Yeah. Unbelievable. The worst part is she doesn't suck balls at it. Bushy makes a mental note to verify that the rigging is against Cactus tonight. Nope. She's not dealing with that shit any longer. No fucking way.

Eventually, Cactus returns to the lounge, sending Kitten out. It takes them a few minutes to set the scene up and change the background dancers from Cthulhu's purple flowers of doom to whitish cat-like figures who are equally as terrifying. Bushranger can't find that she remembers much of anything from the performance. (She won't admit she catnapped through it.)

Queen nudges her side - she mumbles something about "Five more fucking minutes," nevertheless forcing herself to wake up. A quick time check - right. Votes were coming in. Bushy slides over to the application she was using to hack into the Masked Singer databases, checking in. She diverts a few votes, still not fully alert, as the time dies down. The app locks in the numbers and the criminal exhales. Work done.

...Wait.

She shakes her head, looking down at her phone.

Fuck.

She can't fix it now. Fuck, fuck, _fuck..._ Bushy's got half a mind to pull over some dimwit producer and lie through her teeth about how she was suspicious of vote tampering and could they please check the system, but that would almost definitely do more harm than good. Damn it. The value rolls over every 128...

Well, what's done is done, she supposes. Frilly would know how to handle the fallout. She'll bank on that.

"Results are in!" Hostman calls out, opening the door to the stage. As they walk out, Bushy passes Wizard; in that moment, she sees Light's pistol on Cappy's throat again. A sacrifice? Or had she condemned him, too, to suffer for her mistakes?

Head down. Eyes open. _"If you stab someone in the back, you do it cleanly. So that they never know it was you."_

She can feel how disappointed Wizard is when he's called as the loser of the final four. But Bushranger knows to bite her tongue and say nothing; that's key to winning at court, after all. Alien taught her that much about the law.

The minutes blur by after the girls return to the lounge. Frillneck's splayed out on one end of the couch, acting like a forlorn Romeo who's been told that Juliet's poisoned herself, and he gripes about how unfair the elimination was for what feels like even longer than the runtime of Queen's shitty Christmas movies. The others all exchange a collective glance and mutter half-hearted excuses as to why they had to go and how much they'd love to stay, already at the exit doors. Queen's actually got dignitaries coming in at nine-thirty, so Bushy, too, waves her goodbye, forcing herself to not fire off a mean comment about Wizard. Frilly doesn't need that right now. It's her fault he went home, after all.

The driver's seat of the Queenmobile's far too familiar for comfort, if Bushranger's entirely honest with herself. Nevertheless, she settles back in, starting the engine with a satisfied hum. A quick glance over to her passenger, who's fussing with the seatbelt; once Queen's got it down, Bushy reverses the car out of its space, sending it down the lot. They pull onto the highway in silence.

Is she supposed to start the conversation? Frillneck's words ricochet through her helmet time and time again. _We don't know for sure._

Bushranger hates uncertainties. She'd plan her robberies and kills down to the letter, scheming up exactly how to save her skin at every possible civilian reaction or police response. Nothing, no matter how improbable, was left out.

_If the royal bitch somehow walks in on anything, check who she's with. If she's got guards, best to fuck off; you're not gonna beat them in shit, even with bulletproof armor. If she's alone, go nuts, but proceed with caution. Wires are always possible._

If she were in any other possible situation, she'd have her pistol on Queen's temple, threats coming out by the dozen. She still _could_ do that. There's nothing that's stopping her.

Bushy imagines laughing with abandon, one hand on the wheel and one forcing compliance from the captive royal. She doesn't care about Queen's obvious riches, she realizes; she wouldn't be able to actually use any of it. Trophies, maybe, hidden in a loot house somewhere in the bush, but even then, what would be the point? To see the fear in her eyes?

She knows how to get that already. Besides... Queen's not scared of death, is she? Not if she's dancing with the Grim Reaper. And if Frilly's right, that's effectively what she's up to.

Bushy exhales softly, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Why does she care?

Wait. She _cares?_ That feels like a revelation in and of itself, even though she's instinctively known it for a while now. She actually gives a fuck about the woman who should be her sworn enemy. Bushranger blinks once, then twice, as if to clear the thought from her mind. It's all part of the act... right?

As much as she wants to deny it, she knows that's not true. The fact remains that if anyone's gonna fuck with the royal, they could count their lucky stars that Bushy was under a modified home arrest of sorts and _couldn't_ slice their throat open.

She watches Queen for a while from the corner of the slot in her helmet; running over the words, she plows through the possible scenarios like a mental pickup truck. Once she's satisfied that everything is in its right place, Bushranger hums, clearing her throat. "What'd you really think?"

To the prompt, Queen raises an eyebrow, looking back from the window. "About? You did great out there, Bushy."

The comment's sincere enough, she supposes. "I could say the same about you," she replies. "Really came out then, didn't ya?" At her companion's silence, Bushranger continues. "I mean, if you do actually have a diamond-encrusted dildo. Props."

Bushy makes a mental note to try and track down the tweeter that came up with that particular barb so she could wire them a couple thousand. Not like she'll miss it; besides, the royal's expression is absolutely priceless. It's all she can do _not_ to crack up as the realization sinks in for Queen. "You _know_ I didn't mean it like _that!"_

"Not how it sounded," she shrugs. _"Tiffany!"_

The criminal can't stop this laughter from erupting - oh, Queenie's _pissed..._ The monarch is fifty shades of crimson, accentuating the embarrassment she's trying to play off as exasperation with a long sigh and an eyeroll. She says nothing for a long moment, the air filled only with Bushy's attempts to catch her breath. "I hate you."

"You know you don't," she manages to rebut. "If you did..."

"You'd be dead already. I wish." Queen crosses her arms, finishing the statement.

Bushy takes a slant left, finally calming down - she asks a question she's been wanting to hear the answer to. "What happens after this?"

The monarch pauses, swiping a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I don't know," she admits. "I can't realistically let you go back into a life of crime. That would be tantamount to treason. At the same time, the death penalty is, as reluctant as I am to say it, off the table. You do make for a nice space heater, though. Maybe I should just keep you locked in the basement."

"Chain me up like your very own personal toy. Kinky." It's the first thing that comes to mind, and, judging by how scarlet Queen's becoming, a checkmate as well.

When she does speak, it's a concession of defeat. "Don't make me _want_ to chop your head off."

Bushy grins. "If it's by your hand, milady, I would gladly suffer."

"You don't shut up, do you..."

"Nope!" The driver chuckles, popping the p. Her expression quickly sours, though, as she blares the horn at some motherfucker who decides to turn on red into their lane while simultaneously going into great detail about how said motherfucker's ballsack would make a sporting decoration on her Christmas tree. Hey, some things _don't_ change. Bushy notes that her passenger, for whatever reason, is laughing along to her road rage.

She'd be lying if she denied that it made the day just a little bit better.

"Look. Either you fucking do this for me or I will personally assure that you're gonna be on the menu."

The head asshole - so distinguished because he's got a French accent and yells at everyone else - opens his mouth, then closes it. "Surely - "

"You think I'm bluffing?" Bushranger's tone is laced with cyanide as she leans on the counter, then bounces back. She's been arguing with this cunt for five minutes, which is five minutes more than necessary. "I haven't ended a pathetic waste of space in over three months. That's practically a record, and I'm not keen to snap it. But if you continue cunting around, I just might." To accentuate her point, she reaches for her pistol, spinning its barrel before slamming both hands down on the countertop. "You want your family to find your body or not?"

Frog face opens and closes his mouth like a fish a few more times. "I-I'll personally make sure everything is as requested, Dame Bushranger."

"Call me that again and I'll _personally_ make sure your head's on a spike," she mutters, nevertheless stowing her gun.

"Wh-what should I - "

"Don't refer to me at all," Bushy cuts off the chef. "I don't exist."

"R-right." Head asshole nods, still shaking in his boots. "Understood."

With that, Bushranger slips away, but not without flipping off the entirety of the kitchen staff as she does. It's not like they can do shit to her. If all it took to be protected was to be "dating" the head of state... Why hadn't she thought of it before?

She laughs to herself, drumming her fingers on her thigh as she paces down the hallway. _Clink, clink, clink._

Bushy pauses for a moment. That's not her armor. The sound of metal hitting metal continues, and she pinpoints it as coming from ahead on the right side. Intrigued, she jams her hands in her pockets, following the noise.

It leads her to one of those open ballrooms, of which she's counted six at least. What the royals would need more than one for, she has no idea. In any case, from prior perusal, Bushranger knows this room's been redesigned to be a sort of sportsy area, with tape on the floors and multiple storage closets filled with equipment. She crosses her arms, leaning on the door. _Clink, clink, clink._

The last thing any of them need is for Bushy to barge in on some President or Prime Minister. While Queen could shut up the castle staff relatively easily and close the gates to paparazzi, the foreign dignitaries posed a unique problem. There'd be no reasonable explanation anyone could give as to why the hell Australia's Public Enemy Number 1 is hanging around and acting like she owns the place. Even if they swore the visitors to secrecy, they would _know._ The diplomatic stance between their two countries would be severely damaged if the foreigners learned about what was going on.

Or whatever the fuck Queen means when she says that.

In any case, she's not to be caught. Bushy scans the hallway for movement. Finding none, she presses up against the door, raising an eyebrow under her helmet. After a moment, she tests the doorknob. It's unlocked.

Bushranger exhales softly, shimmying the door open just a crack. She peers inside the room. A white-clad person is waving what appears to be a flexible, slender metal stick at another white-clad person, who tries to block it with their stick and reply with a hit of their own. The lights on Person 1's helmet flash green, and they pump a fist, walking backwards to a line of tape as their opponent does the same. Bushy's not blind to the slight falter in 1's step as they flip up their visor - even though their back is to the observer, she still knows exactly who this is from their voice alone.

"What's the score at?"

Person 2 similarly pulls up their visor. White hair in a clever bobcut frames a pale face; she turns to look at the scoreboard on the wall. "Eleven to nine. Are you sure you don't want to take a quick break?" 2's got a clipped accent of sorts; if she had to guess, Bushranger would wager that it's German.

Person 1 shakes her head, flicking her visor back down as a black curl peeks out of her suit. "Not when I'm winning."

 _Never change, Queenie._ Bushy can't stop a slight smile from growing under her helmet as she watches the two fencers go head-to-head - or tip-to-tip, more literally. The movements are quick and fluid, getting recalled almost before they're deployed. She spectates on in satisfaction, noting how the scores tick ever upwards. Almost too soon, the left half of the scoreboard hits 15. The two detach one last time, each flipping their visor up and putting their weapons down before Queen paces the few steps between them, extending a hand for her opponent to shake.

"You put up a good fight, Koningin." Bushy can visualize the grin her companion's wearing, even though she can't see it. "I'm looking forward to the rematch already."

"As do I," the white-haired woman - _Koningin_ \- replies. "You're improving every time we come to visit."

Queen chuckles. "I'd hope I am!" She pauses for a moment, looking to the clock on the scoreboard. "It's almost dinnertime. I'll see you there?"

Koningin nods, waving as she leaves the room wordlessly. Queen takes a minute to make sure she's not returning; when she's reasonably certain she's alone, the royal drops to her knees, assuming a brace position and gasping for breath.

Before Bushy knows it, she's opened the door and dashed over, stooping to be at the other's level. "Everything alright?"

Queen looks up, startled, then gives up, letting her head fall back down. "Y-yeah. Just... tired."

"You look like you got socked in the gut fifteen times," Bushranger points out.

"I get... winded easily. Give me a... A minute, I'll be okay..."

Bushy raises an eyebrow under her helmet. "You don't look okay," she states, crossing her arms and desperately trying to ignore the way her stomach knots itself over and over again in concern. Why does she care?

Queen opens her mouth to speak, then gives up, resorting to catching her breath. They stay there like that for a while, the worry chewing at the peripherals of Bushranger's vision. Finally, the monarch shifts to be sitting down on the floor. "I won," she pants out with a weary grin.

"And you look like you're gonna pass out," Bushy replies, brow furrowed. "You need to get some rest..."

"I promised Koningin I'd be down for dinner," Queen sighs, even as her companion transitions into a cross-legged position. "I'll be up in a minute."

"Which you said five minutes ago." Bushranger toys with the safety hook, flicking it up, then down again. "You can afford to call this off, you know."

The contrite expression the monarch gives her feels like a bullet to the chest. "I don't want to, though," she admits, glancing off to the side.

"It's okay if it'll make ya feel better." The criminal's hand slides across the floor; she finds Queen's and begins quietly drumming her fingertips on the back of the thick glove the royal's wearing. "She'll understand."

A pause. "I shouldn't. I'll be fine."

"You say that, but we both know you're lying," Bushy hums, as if this were a daily occurrence.

Queen shrugs, lapsing back into silence for a short bit. "I should go."

Bushranger exhales softly, pulling back. There's no arguing with her; frankly, she doesn't want her companion more upset at her, so she lets the point slide. "...Okay. Just... Don't go overboard, alright? If you're tired, you can just turn in early." She stands up, extending a hand to help her taller companion, who takes it, pulling herself up as well.

The monarch's grip lingers for a moment before letting go. "I might," she nods, then offers a melancholy smile as she turns away, headed out the same door as Koningin and leaving Bushy in the repurposed ballroom alone. Queen would be going down to the dining hall after a quick shower, she supposed, so her bedroom would likely be empty at dinnertime.

Wait, why does she care about that? Right... She tells herself she's trying to keep Queen safe, to find anything that could possibly help Frilly figure out what to do. It's partially a lie, but she won't admit it.

In any case, Bushranger tidies up one of the tape lines, which is beginning to peel up, then waits for when she knows all the rich people will be downstairs. She slips out of the room, letting the distortion swirl around her and fill her senses with _his_ breath heavy on her neck.

Get a grip, goddammit.

The criminal shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut to push Light's memory back into the hellscape of her mind that kept tallies in crimson of all the lives whose threads she shot short. Focus.

Bushy bites her lip, finding the scarred patch she'd worn down at the show a few days back and proceeding to aggravate the wound. Ironic that the same blood that fueled the late-night terrors was the only thing that kept her from finally losing it. God, she's utterly pathetic.

She barely realizes she's in front of Queen's bedroom door until she's popped it open, finally taking a look inside. It's surprisingly minimalistic compared to most of the castle (excluding her own room, of course). The furniture consists of a canopy bed with sheers hanging off said canopy, a desk (with a chair) that's got a laptop and assorted papers scattered on it, a bookshelf whose contents Bushy would most assuredly never give a fuck about, a bare dresser, and a nightstand with only a Sharpie.

 _What are we looking for..._ Bushranger sighs, pacing over to the desk. She ruffles through the pages, finding nothing of value outside of United Nations reports on the financialization of housing, which she could at least use as toilet paper in a crisis. The criminal replaces the shit exactly as it was before, raising an eyebrow at the Sharpie on the nightstand. She walks over, taking the pen in her hands and uncapping it idly.

Bushy pauses at the utterly mundane sight of the black tip before putting the cap back on and leaving it where she'd found it. To be entirely honest, she's not sure why she's even here, snooping around a monarch's personal space. It's just a hunch she's got, that something here might help her understand. She glances now to the bed and the single stuffed rabbit on it. Bushranger can't stop a smile from breaking out as she reaches for the light brown bunny, rubbing the fur on its head.

Its tag is sharp. She makes a mental note to file it down at some point in the near future, promptly ignoring the part of her that wonders why she gives a fuck. After a long minute, she reluctantly replaces the stuffed animal, crouching by the nightstand and pulling open the drawer. There's a single small book in there, a notebook if the lining on its sides is any indication, and a ballpoint next to it.

Bushy contemplates _not_ opening said notebook, leaving secrets to the wind, but Curiosity is a whore and she's whispering in the captive criminal's ear with that sultry tone that _demands_ attention. She's going to Hell anyways. Maybe if she racks up enough points, she'll be saved by how wicked she's become.

All of this to say that Bushranger checks to make sure nobody's around before promptly popping open the pages. Her fingers toy with the slender bookmark as she scans the loops in the fine blue handwriting.

_26/07_

_-_

_27/07_

_-_

_28/07_

_~3500 (NZ)_

_29/07_

_~2700 (NZ)_

_30/07_

_-_

_31/07_

_950_

_01/08_

_750_

The list of numbers spirals back and forth through time. Bushy flips to the beginning; if the dates were accurate, this would likely be two or three years back. A piece of paper falls out and she collects it from the floor. It's crumpled up, so Bushranger smooths it out on her leg. Seems to be a newspaper clipping. She inspects the daily sports scores for a minute, raising an eyebrow at the blue writing pressed so hard into Marseille's victory that it's almost ripped through the page. _Any means necessary._

Bushy flips the paper over, heart already sinking into her stomach in preparation. Whatever this was wasn't good, was it...

The blue ink is splashed so much more liberally on this side. It's hard to make out much in particular, but if Bushranger squints, she can almost see a smiling, happier, younger Queen giggling as she takes the hand of some foreign secretary or something. Of course, it could very well be a Picasso, for all she knows. The headline's so butchered it'd probably be easier for Stevie Wonder to read than her.

Bushy chews on her lip, folding the page back up and tucking it inside the front cover.

_19/02_

_Weight: 77.2_

_Target: 75_

_Breakfast: Two slices of toast with jam, coffee with milk_

_Lunch: Garden salad, light on the dressing, with chicken_

_Dinner: Fish (halibut?) in lemon sauce with asparagus_

_Dessert: Skipped - can't be having all that sugar_

As time wears on, the recordings begin having what Bushy can only assume are caloric modifiers after each meal. The modifiers grow smaller. First one day a week, then two, are marked merely with a tick, skipped entirely. The weight goes down to 63, its target bottoming at 60, then it shoots back up to 68 as the modifiers balloon. The final few recordings of weight are scratched out entirely as she spots a 7 as the leading digit. Indents litter the pages, ripples consistent with teardrops. Eventually, meals stop being tracked, replaced with only a single number - or lack thereof. Country indicators sometimes appear after the numbers, almost always when they were high. The back third of the notebook is empty; Bushy hopes beyond hope it stays that way.

She has to talk to Frilly. She _has_ to.

If you told her last year that she'd end up not only on a singing competition, but also pretending to date the Queen of Australia, Bushranger would have called you crazy. If you then also informed her that she'd be so terrified of what that Queen's doing to herself that she'd be fumbling the number to the only person who she could trust with the knowledge, that person being an annoyingly chirpy red Frillneck who might just be helping her so he can feel better about his previous failures... Well, she'd be interested in whatever cocktail of shit you were obviously drugged up on.

She misses the call button three times.

He doesn't pick up. Bushy tries again, aware that she's probably destroying the nerves in her mouth with how coppery the air feels in her helmet.

One ring. Two. Three.

"Hey."

"Oh my god," she breathes out, pitching forward involuntarily.

"What's going on?" The concern lacing Frilly's voice is oozing through the receiver. "Did something happen? Bushy?"

"I..." A cough. How can anyone explain this? How can she begin to try? "Frilly..."

"Hey, hey," he replies, and she can hear how he shifts into a sitting position. "Bushy, what's going on?" A pause. "Do you need me to come over?"

"N-no, it's..." And she's stuttering now. As if she could possibly get _any_ more pathetic. Bushranger inhales sharply again, searching for any words and coming up embarrassingly empty.

"Do you want to show me? Will that make it better?" It feels like he's talking to an abandoned kid in the candy aisle of the supermarket who's covered in bruises. "You can send me some pictures."

Bushy nods, even though she knows Frillneck can't see it. It takes her four tries to hit the photo button the first time, which is just fucking sad, really. She sends a few snippets, from the first page to the most recent ones, then unfolds the newspaper and sends both sides of that, too. Then, she waits.

"Oh dear," Frilly mumbles after a long pause. "How long does this go back?"

"I think..." She flips back through the notebook once more. "Three years. Two and a half, give or take. But we don't even know if this is the first..."

"Right." He takes the words unsaid from the air. "Okay. Okay... From what it sounds like, she's sort of forced to play along when she's hosting. I did a quick look-up of those dates on the last one and they line up with when leaders from those countries were in Australia. Does she normally skip two days before the modifiers?"

Bushranger exhales softly, trying to stave off the tremors in her fingers as she plays with a page. "It started off as one, but it went up to two maybe a year back," she reports.

"Mhm." The gears turning in Frilly's head are practically audible. "Okay. You normally have dinner together, right?"

The realization hits her like a dead man's stick of dynamite full blast. "Well, I try to... she'll sometimes say she had a big lunch and - Queen's been lying to me, hasn't she?" What's one more lie on top of the shitshow? The sting's familiar, but it's nestled deep, pricking in an entirely new and uncomfortable way. She doesn't like it, not at all.

Frillneck's lack of a response only confirms what she's thinking. The fencing sword in her chest twists itself once again. She cares, she cares so, so much, and it hurts so bad to know. The first person in the better part of a decade to actually try, to not just write her off as a lost cause...

Bushy wants to blow holes in God's kneecaps. Both of them. And then, when that motherfucker keels over in pain, she wants to blow another hole in his skull and watch him writhe in sheer agony. The distortion colors the edges of her vision again until all she's seeing is red, red, red and someone's gonna fucking _get it_ tonight.

"You still there?"

"Y-yeah." It's all she can do not to throw the phone at the wall.

"Can you be making sure she's having that dinner?"

What is she, fucking Houdini? "I can try..." She doesn't like the way her voice quavers at the end of the last word.

"Okay," Frilly hums. "We're going to have to - "

He's cut off by a knocking sound. "How long is it going to take you in there?"

Despite all her rage, Bushranger can't stifle a peal of laughter as Frillneck sighs. "Wiz, I'm having a _girls talk_ in here."

"In the _bathroom?"_ Wizard's eye rolling is a given in the situation. "At _McDonald's?"_

Bushy wheezes at that revelation while Frilly stammers up a defense. So _that's_ what the lovebirds were up to.

She should leave them alone. Frills doesn't deserve to have to deal with her problems.

"You want to get back to your dinner date?" the criminal asks, still chuckling.

"It's not a - _fine._ I'll text you later? Before Wiz abracadabras the door open."

Bushy finds herself nodding. "Yeah. That'd be - that'd be good. Thanks, Frilly."

"Don't thank me," he mumbles into the receiver. "I'm just trying to do the best I can."

The line goes silent. Bushranger sits there for a moment, feeling how dead her heart beats in her armor, before calmly, so calmly, folding up all the evidence and putting it back where it belongs. She slides the drawer shut, looking to the bunny on the bed. "You keep her safe, okay?"

No response. Bushy sighs, standing up and slipping out the door. The whirlwind kicks up around her, distant gunshots ringing between her ears. She should turn in early. Yeah. That'd be good.

The only reason she doesn't pin anybody to the wall with ammunition like a bleeding butterfly is because her imagination does the work for her. The anger doesn't fade away, not even after she's kicked the pillows around so much they're dripping with stuffing. Bushranger pretends they're all Goldfish. It helps, a little bit, but it's not going to make it better.

All she can do is hope that Frilly knows how to fix this. And frankly, it terrifies her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good luck, Bushy. You'll need it...


	5. Set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 4, with a cry for help and a voice from Bushranger's past.

"You ready for today?" Bushranger drums her fingers on the steering wheel, glancing back at her companion.

Queen looks up from her phone, which she's fiddling with idly. "I suppose," she nods.

"Awesome." The air's heavy - Bushy's head reels with nervousness as she pulls her eyes off the rearview mirror. All the things she wants to say are suffocating, smoke filling up her helmet, trying to figure out how many seconds she's got to survive. "...Best of luck?"

Because of course she'd say that. That, when there's so many more important things hanging around. "You too," the monarch replies, though her tone is laced with too much knowledge. Neither of them needed the luck, did they?

The Queenmobile lapses into a sticky quiet again, the hum of the engine the only thing that reminds Bushy of where she is. She pulls into the parking lot, neatly slotting the car into no fewer than four spaces. At Queen's knowing look in the rearview, the driver sighs with a weary grin, obliging by maneuvering into a single spot. She hops out, opening the door for her passenger, and if her hand lingers just a second too long on the monarch's as she helps her out of the car, that's a secret she'll keep with the wind.

They're the first ones there today, which is nice. It guarantees Bushy a corner seat and Queen her own end. It also guarantees Bushy will have to deal with her companion napping on her shoulder, but that's less of a downside than it used to be. She throws herself back on the couch, pulling out her phone and checking the choreography for today one last time before looking to Queen, who's sort of watching her? Huh.

"Like what you see?" Bushranger quips, sliding her phone back in her coat again.

The royal rolls her eyes, quickly diverting her gaze to the door. "I'm imagining you on the gallows. It's therapeutic."

"You'd finally get to see my _beautiful_ face," Bushy drawls out, not missing a beat. "I'll make sure to die with my eyes open so my curse kills you."

"I think I'm immune to that, dear."

"I don't," she grunts back. "You wanna press your luck?"

Queen shrugs. "If my last moments are with you, it's worth it."

Bushranger wishes she were in the car again because now would be the perfect time to slam on the brakes. As it stands, though, she mutters a "Fuck off with your sappy shit," pulling her legs up under herself. She ignores how natural it is to lean onto Queen's side, ignores the way the skirt gives way almost as if it were designed specifically with this in mind. 

The other four soon arrive. Kitten's first, claiming the other corner; then, Cactus perches on the other end. Frilly's third, giving Bushy a knowing look as he takes the middle seat next to her. She catches it, offering a nod back. Puppet arrives exactly five minutes late, just as Usher's coming out to call for Frills as the first performance of the night. He hops up, following Hostman to the stage.

The song that kicks off the night is terribly upbeat and old-timey. Bushy wonders whether the original song also oscillates so rapidly between the regular notes and Frilly's high-pitched yelping additions. She's getting a second-hand energy overload.

Seriously, though, what do mashed potatoes have to do with any of it?

Frillneck returns, falling back into his seat with a long exhale. She doesn't blame him - the choreo seems exhausting, what with the leg movements and windmilling and all. The snake reappears in the doorway. "Bushranger, you're up next."

She's tempted to reply with a simple "Fuck you", but thinks better of it, instead smirking under her helmet as she passes Hostman. Bushy had spent hours trawling through YouTube for the sexiest music video on the site with a song she could actually sing. When she saw Normani literally bouncing a basketball off her ass, she knew she found it. To that, she added a breakneck routine inspired partially by the video and hounded the producers to bring back the cutesy dancers from the second week. So yeah, she gives absolutely no fucks what anyone thinks.

Bushranger tries to convince herself she's not doing this to see what reaction Queen has; giving up, she settles on calling it a middle finger to society. As she takes her starting position, she idly wonders what Twitter was gonna say before realizing that she still doesn't care.

 _"I'mma break you off, let me be your motivation to stay and give me tonight - and baby‚ turn around‚ let me give you innovation, hey, 'cause I do it so right..."_ Bushy finds every step, every bend of her knees to catch that perfect balance; she's fully in control of this performance and she plans to use that to her advantage, but it's not like every word is caught on a flurry of regrets, either. A flick of her coat, a power pose, and ninety seconds of music come to an end. Boom.

Fuck you, Koala.

After the judges talk about how great she was (which she's pretty sure they're only doing because she has a gun and her moral compass last worked sometime in the Nineties), she's let free to head back to the lounge. Cactus passes her in the hallway, nodding in appreciation. Just before she reaches said lounge, her phone buzzes.

_Leliyn, today at 19:54_

_hey_

_i know i shouldnt press the subject but_

_did you talk to her?_

Oh. Bushy sighs, remembering the half-hearted promise she made.

_Storm Warning, today at 19:55_

_now that you remind me, I'll do it on the way home_

_Leliyn, today at 19:55_

_okay_

_dont force it_

_Storm Warning, today at 19:55_

_I won't_

Bushy slides her phone back into her coat, exhaling. Her heart beats faster than it did all throughout her song as she pops out from the hallway's opening, walking to her seat confidently. She doesn't have enough time to fall back into her usual position, so she merely throws herself back on the couch, rolling her eyes at the plethora of pink balloons getting blown up.

Cactus's performance is another one of those forgettable ones. Not too special. Good, she supposes, but some of the notes felt a little off. What was the point of all the background scenery?

"Hey, Queen?" The words come out uncertain - Bushranger steels her resolve, looking over to her taller companion. "Can we, uh... We need to talk later... Okay?" Her sheer lack of confidence scares even her.

The monarch raises both eyebrows, dusting her skirt off as she stands. Her expression is pitifully lost. "Alright?" Queen's gaze goes back down to the floor tiles again as she paces away, disappearing through the door to the stage.

The kink for design is evident tonight - there are no fewer than six background dancers along with statues and chandeliers. Ah, and there's the voice she's grown to admire. Bushy settles back.

Wait, the skirt detaches? _Cunt._ What -

This woman never fails to surprise. That's all she's going to say on the matter. One second, she's royally messed up the last notes on the chorus; the next, she somehow makes it work; and now she's hitting a high note that's causing Bushranger's helmet to ring uncontrollably. One would be inclined to think Queen just doesn't care, but they all know better than that. It's obvious even from the meticulousness in her set designs, which really do bring out the gold accents on her dress.

Ah, fuck, she's even beginning to _think_ like her.

Puppet's next to go, hopping off the couch as Queen returns. For everyone's safety, Bushranger hopes he hasn't chosen another Spanish song. She supposes she might let it slide, though, as she settles back into her familiar position resting on Queen's shoulder, watching the television screen while the crew set up for the performance. It'd be a shame to have to waste the bullets. Besides, this was comfortable, as loathe as she was to admit it.

The song's not Spanish, much to her relief. She vaguely remembers it from the radio as kinda shitty, and Puppet gives it a significantly less shitty cover. Not that that actually makes the song good, but he's not bad and _Thinking Out Loud_ shows his not-bad-ness. Or whatever it's called, Bushy isn't in the business of giving a fuck.

When he returns, Puppet high-fives Kitten, who's last to go, as if to tag-team her in. _All The Small Things_ is refreshingly peppy, even if the meowing is beginning to grate on Bushranger's already-fraying nerves. It's obvious Kitten came here for a good time, and it's contagious. The ball of yarn she paws out draws a room-wide chuckle, a welcome distraction from the fact that someone's going home.

Soon, Kitten returns, curling up in her corner with a contented purr. The votes begin to come in, and Bushy casually checks her phone, opening the vote tally. She nudges Queen's shoulder with her helmet, showing her the screen; at the royal's nod, the criminal slides her phone back in her pocket, closing her eyes. She could get used to this.

"Results are in!" The snake in the grass pops up at the doorway to the stage with a smile that pisses Bushranger off. She sighs, pulling herself up and spinning on her heel to offer a hand to Queen, who takes it. They're the last two out on the stage, and that's okay. The elimination goes as Bushy knew it would, with the Cactus of doom finally leaving. Back in the lounge, Puppet's showing Kitten the tournament-style rock-paper-scissors game's new hand motions and rules, Frillneck looking on and commenting. The two girls excuse themselves, Queen lying that she's got to be home by nine tonight. She's good at lying.

"What's going on, Bushy?" The monarch fiddles with her seatbelt, clicking it in place as her companion backs out of the space they'd parked in.

It almost feels like she's choking. One mistake and everything could slip through her fingers. She clears her throat awkwardly, running her hands on the steering wheel as she turns out of the lot. "Would you rather talk about it in the car or at home?"

Queen shrugs. "Whatever you think is best." She seems confused, still.

"Let's go home then," Bushy decides. "We can sit on the couch and put on a movie, okay?"

The royal nods to that, plunging the Queenmobile into silence. Bushranger looks for the proper words to explain it all; coming up short, she embraces the quiet. They soon arrive at the castle, Bushy leading the way to the movie room Queen seemed to frequent.

She has one chance, really. If she messes this up...

The criminal shakes her head, trying to dispel that mental image. She searches for a shitty romance movie they can easily tune out, hitting play on another of those holiday specials.

It's time. "Queenie, I've been worried about you." Each word twists in Bushranger's throat, sticking like a fly in glue.

"Why?" the monarch replies, raising an eyebrow.

Twenty different reasons spill from the slot in Bushy's helmet. She bottles them, looking to the screen. "I've been noticing things recently." A pause - she supposes she can try to lob the ball into Queen's court to give herself an extra few seconds. "Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

The guilt that flickers through the royal's eyes only serves to further confirm that something's wrong. "No," she replies, but it's a hair quieter, more hesitant.

"That's okay," Bushy exhales. She reaches across the middle couch cushion to find Queen's hand at the halfway point. It's cold. The monarch pulls away. Bushranger lets her arm lie there as she lets the soft chattering of the lovebirds on the television take over the room. It's the end of fucking July, for God's sake. She's in no mood whatsoever for Christmas carols and the mass-produced snow insisted on by America. Maybe it would make for a slightly more familiar environment, though.

How does she even begin to talk about it? Frillneck's texted advice repeats itself in her mind. _Be gentle, but be firm. Don't let her make excuses._

"Hey, uh, by the way." She'll have to flank the problem. "Should I yell at the chef to send up something?"

"There's no need." The reply's quick, tense. Backed into a corner, dodging a fist swung.

Bushy drums her fingers on the armrest, watching Queen's response from the corner of her vision. "You sure?" At the royal's snappy, too-fast nod, the criminal continues. "When's the last time you had anything?"

"This morning..." Queen trails off. "Breakfast."

Bushranger snorts at that. "We've been together all day. Try again."

"Then, uh... Last night, I guess? Koningin and the rest of the Belgian delegation and I had a lovely dinner. They left this morning, you know." The way she looks back to the screen at the end of the statement reminds Bushy entirely too much of a man on the floor with a bomb in his hands. Queen knows there's no easy way out of this, not after she's lied through her teeth to try to save her skin.

"Let's go with last night," the shorter of the two crosses her arms. "That would mean you've had nothing today. And you're not at all hungry?"

The taller pauses. "...Not really. We had a very large dinner."

"Oh?" Bushy raises an eyebrow under her helmet. "How large?"

"Twenty seven hundred - "

"And why do you know that?" She cuts the monarch off before the latter can get to trying to explain everything away.

For Queen's part, she merely sighs, not even bothering to respond to the question. "What do you want?"

What _does_ she want? Bushranger's at a loss for words. She, too, looks to the television, watching as the washed-up has-been main guy sort of blatantly bribes the similarly has-been main girl into a lunch together. It's so fucking _easy_ in the movies, huh. "I want you to be alright," she admits after a long moment.

"I'm okay though."

"Because you have to be. But are you really? Is this - is _any_ of this normal?" Bushy hears how her voice frays at the edges with concern, wishes it'd tie itself back together. She's got to be strong, now and forever. "Look, I - I'm going to be honest with you, okay?" At Queen's guilty-as-charged nod, she continues. "I don't know what shit you're going through. I have no _fucking_ clue what's going on, what any of this is or means, or even how to fix it. I'm an idiot and I'll admit it. All I know is that something's wrong. Queenie, I..." Bushranger takes a long inhale to calm her racing heart. "A couple nights ago, when you were at dinner... I snuck into your room. I know. I'm a cunt, shoot me. But I was worried about you, and I thought maybe something there would help me figure out what was giving me such an iffy feeling. I found the notebook."

The royal opens her mouth to defend herself; expecting it, Bushy cuts her off before she begins. "Don't tell me it was some experiment, or someone else's, or whatever. I might be dumb but I'm not stupid."

The silence that follows is broken by another Christmas carol drifting off the screen. Fucking movies. In the movies, they don't have real people with real problems. All the cunts do is just smile and laugh and fall in love easily, so fucking easily. It honestly makes Bushranger sick.

"I..." She hates how she's constantly unable to find the right words, as if uttering _open sesame_ would fix everything. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you or if you even _want_ help. I just know something's incredibly fucking wrong, even if you deny it. Am I the only person that sees it? Or is everyone else just too much of a pussy to tell you?"

Queen doesn't reply for a long time. They've both got things to think about, so maybe the silence is a relief, just this once. The has-beens continue having been on the screen; if any of it were anywhere near as good in real life, none of this would ever be happening. Goddammit, why can't we all get a happy ending? Bushranger sighs - she's not the type to have one, after all. But if she could trade the last shreds of her humanity to heal the scars ripping through Queen's soul... Well, she'd only ask for twenty-four hours to put as much distance between them as possible, so she wouldn't get hurt again.

"I'm tired..."

"Hm?" Bushy raises an eyebrow under her helmet, glancing over.

"Of - all of this." Queen fiddles with a glove, looking down at her lap. "I... I'm tired of pretending, of acting like someone I'm not. I'm supposed to be - I'm supposed to be _perfect._ A role model, someone all the little girls of Australia can look up to and say _I want to be her._ Scholar-athlete, hourglass figure, love story with some prince from a faraway land... That's not me. I can't - I can't do that. And they talk about it. They won't stop _talking_ about it. Every little thing I do, someone knows about it, someone's talking..."

"Why do you care what they say?" Bushranger's tone is confused, but she doesn't really need to ask. She knows all too well - _they're watching us anyway._ Every heist, every murder, every time she tried to repent for her sins. That famous picture, crying at the witness stand, scars scratched up all over the left side of her face until blood's dripping onto her fingers. Eyes begging for a release from the terrors that shoot up and down her spine, night after night. They're still not fully gone; once in a while, Bushy will drag herself to the sink at three in the morning, hope the ice-cold water cools the burning sensation firing through her left side, stinging with betrayal and innocence lost. It never works. She always ends up agitating the scars, causing them to reform in an even uglier manner than before. And they're watching, they're watching every second of it. And they're talking about it.

Queen, for her part, sighs, brow furrowed. She's hurting too. On instinct, Bushy slides closer to her, bridging the gap of the middle couch cushion. She offers her hand wordlessly - the royal takes it after a second's hesitation, black and brown intertwining. "I - I'm sorry I'm wasting your time..."

"You're not, darlin'. Don't worry about it." Somehow, that's the realest thing she's said today. Queen nods, slumping onto Bushranger's shoulder. She can hear, from the catching of her breath, how the monarch's teetering on the edge of exploding into a ball of tears and shifts accordingly to pull her down into a familiar recline, still holding her hand. Bushy's left glove finds the familiar curve in Queen's back and she begins rubbing a small circle in.

The floodgates burst, then, as the royal shivers in the criminal's arms. Her shoulder's growing damp but it's okay. If it makes her feel better... then it's alright.

"I'm so tired of it all..."

"I know, I know you are."

"I just want them to stop _talking,"_ and here Queen's voice cracks as she burrows her face into the scratchy fabric of her companion's coat.

Bushy would be lying if she said her heart didn't crack a little bit at that, too. "I know," she repeats, because it's the only thing that makes a shred of sense to say. The conversation tapers off, caroling replacing it from the unnecessarily red-and-green TV as Bushranger fulfills her obligation to be the world's most murderous pillow. She debates texting Frillneck, to tell him how it went, but doing so would require moving around, and Queen looks so peaceful when she's asleep. Besides, she's going through a lot right now. Bushy doesn't want to make it worse.

_"I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need - I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree... I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know... Make my wish come true, oh, all I want for Christmas is you..."_

And hey, maybe the holidays aren't so bad after all.

"I wanna take you out tonight."

"What?" Queen spins around in her desk chair, one eyebrow cocked upwards at the criminal leaning in the doorway to the bedroom, arms crossed. The royal's tone bleeds with confusion.

"I said," Bushranger repeats, slower, "I wanna take you out tonight."

"...Like a date? Or with a sniper rifle?"

"Preferably both," she admits. "But let's start with the first one and work our way into things."

"That sounds like you're interested in putting guns in places where they don't go," Queen comments, a slight smirk catching on her lips as she spins her pen lazily between her fingers.

Bushy grunts in reply. "If you don't shut up, we'll be testing if my slide length is as long as it's claimed to be."

"Your... what now?"

She grins under her helmet, content at puzzling the monarch, as she pops out her revolver from its holster, tossing it once in her gloved hand and enjoying the familiarity of the weight. "Slide length. The amount I can reasonably shove up someone's ass."

Queen's smirk, faded away, reappears, cockier than before. "So you _do_ enjoy playing with your guns."

"Only when there's no witnesses to the scene of the crime." Bushranger chuckles, replacing her pistol in its place. "Anyways, you're free tonight?"

"I... don't see why I wouldn't be?" It's a question, as if anything about the way the response is worded could set off a trap. "Where would we - "

"Don't worry about it," Bushy hums, feeling as her normally neutral expression morphs into a relaxed smile. "Your _girlfriend_ will take care of everything."

It's almost an inside joke between them at this point. Every step falling deeper, trying to see who'll pull their hand out of the fire first, who'll cut the ties that are growing stronger with each passing day.

"In that case," the royal closes her eyes for a second, "You'll have to pick me up when it's time to go."

"Will do, darlin'." With that, she pivots on her heel, heading out to try to make this work.

It's so funny how _natural_ it all comes. Almost as if it were meant to be this way. It's not, of course, and it never was, but Bushranger can pretend, can't she? She can lie to herself and say she gets a happy ending, even if she's not the kind of person to have one. She's built a reputation, an empire, on the bedrock of falsehoods, so what's one more on the pile?

Bushy tips her head, watching her shoes as she rounds a corner, pacing towards her room. She's got exactly one idea for this. It'll either turn out amazing or god-awful, with no in-between. Of course, it'll probably be the latter, but...

"Open your eyes."

Queen drops her hands from where they were covering her sight, looking around. She raises an eyebrow, glancing back at Bushranger, who grins under her helmet, taking the half-step that separates them.

"I made sure nobody's going to be looking," she explains. "I know it's sort of a seedy place, but..."

The royal merely nods, watching the corner of the waiters' desk as if it would suddenly grow teeth and attack. Bushy places a hand on her companion's shoulder, hoping it's a reassuring gesture. She spots the host and waves. "Hey, Howler!"

"Ranger! So you _are_ alive."

As the man approaches, Bushy crosses her arms. "You expected me to kick the bucket?"

He laughs, offering Queen a hand to shake - she takes it. "Not at all. I'm Wolf, by the way. Ranger and I go back."

The criminal notes how her companion seems ever-so-slightly annoyed by that, an incredibly minute stretch to her smile. "Queen," she nods, pulling her hand back after a quick yet firm shake.

Wolf looks between the two. A second passes; then, he bursts into laughter. "You - you _weren't_ lying? My God, Ranger, you _do_ get around."

"Say it like that again and I'll put a cartridge through your skull," Bushy grunts. "You could afford to be a little less of a cunt, you know. Especially 'cause _I_ was the one who - "

"Fine," he sighs, raising his hands to cut her off. "Okay. Sorry. Uh, right this way. I put you in the spot we normally have." Wolf spins on his heel, leading the two to a spot way in the back of the restaurant. A wall separates their booth from general view.

"Your brother doing okay?" Bushy queries as Queen slides into the further secluded seat.

Wolf nods. "Thanks for everything, by the way. Really."

She shrugs. "It's what we do." To that, the waiter leaves. Bushranger sinks into the opposite seat, watching Queen toy idly with the menu.

"Friend of yours?" Her tone's a little listless; her eyes watch the table intently.

Bushy hums noncommittally. "Guess you could say that if you're suicidal. Long story short - his brother was severely injured in a car accident in Belgium. 'Cause he was sorta homeless at the time and not a citizen, he couldn't get insurance for the medical bills. They did patch him up but he needed to actually pay the shit back."

Queen raises an eyebrow. "So how do you know Wolf?"

"There's a very limited amount of dumbasses who will stop a serial killer on the street at 2 in the morning and ask if he can help for a cut of the riches because he can't let his brother go completely bankrupt." She sighs. "I know, I work alone, but..." A pause. "I try to do good things every once in a while. It makes me feel better about all the blood on my hands, and he needed it. He wouldn't have pulled off a good robbery - his bite isn't as strong as his bark. But he does have access to a business, and I need a place to launder the money I've gotten. So we strike a deal - if he swaps out the cash, I'll send the brother what he needs to pay his medical expenses. I guess that makes us friends."

The royal nods. "Ah." The reply is terse, as if she did something wrong. Did she do something wrong? She hoped it'd be private... Was there somebody watching? Bushranger looks around before opening the menu. It didn't seem so. Was it the fare? Sure, this place wasn't a health food heaven, but that was more opportunity for actually, well, eating. Maybe...

"If you want, you can get something for us to share?"

The melancholy smile returns to the monarch's eyes. "I think I'm okay."

"I'll get something anyways," Bushy decides, "And if you want, you can steal from me. Howler!"

The waiter in question scurries over to the table. "You're ready?"

The criminal rolls her eyes under her helmet. "The fuck do you think I want? Whatever burger the chef decides is best today and a side order of the chili cheese fries."

Wolf nods. "On it. Anything else?" He looks to Queen, who shakes her head.

"I'm good, but thanks."

He glances back to Bushranger before walking away. _Bzzz._ She sighs, whipping out her phone.

_Little Green Riding Hood, today at 19:47_

_she real?_

_Storm Warning, today at 19:47_

_yes_

_and if you start any shit_

_Little Green Riding Hood, today at 19:48_

_okay jeez_

_calm down Ranger_

_I can see you stewing from over here_

_Storm Warning, today at 19:49_

_you're wasting my time_

_Little Green Riding Hood, today at 19:50_

_...you joined that competition because of me, didn't you?_

_Storm Warning, today at 19:51_

_trust me, once I heard you were on it I had negative intentions of joining_

_now leave me the fuck alone_

Bushranger looks up, flipping off the entirety of the kitchen. Wolf laughs, ducking out from behind a cart of plates and disappearing to wait another table. "Cunt," she mutters.

"So you must be good friends, then," Queen points out. "You haven't - "

"I wish I did shoot him in the head half the time," the criminal grunts as a reply.

The royal chuckles to that as their booth falls into silence. A moment passes; then, Bushy tentatively slides her hand across the table, resting it on top of the monarch's. She doesn't pull away.

There's an annoying throbbing on Bushranger's armor, a slight heat hitting her smile - she's smiling? Huh. She could get used to this.

She shouldn't try.

"Queenie?"

"Hm?" She looks up from the plate she's staring at idly, her golden gaze piercing through the slot in Bushy's helmet. And then everything suddenly makes so much more sense.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, _fuck..._

"Uh..." What was she going to talk about? Fuck. She's forgotten. "I, uh... you like the place?" _Lame._

Queen glances back to the kitchen, where Wolf's attempting to balance an ungodly amount of plates on his arms. _Attention whore._ "I mean - "

"Of course, if you don't really like it, we can always go somewhere else? I was actually planning to head somewhere after this, but I know you weren't going to have dinner beforehand and... Yeah." What the _fuck's_ gotten into her? She doesn't act like this, rambling and losing her goddamn mind over someone she should want dead. And now she's gotta think about where they could go afterwards.

The royal smiles, and holy shit if the world didn't just stop for a good, long minute. "It's wonderful," she hums. They both know it's not really the truth, but it's not that hostile sort of lie that wants to let go, either. So it's okay, maybe.

Queen returns to watching the plate like it's a snarling pitbull and she's trying to hide the fact that she's a raging cynophobe. Bushy returns to watching her while pretending not to, drumming her fingers on the back of the monarch's hand. It feels so _normal._ And it _shouldn't._

Eventually, Wolf appears at their table with the fries and burger, depositing them cleanly in the center with a wink Bushranger's way. He howls quietly, grinning like a dumbass as he leaves. Queen looks to her fork, then takes it as Bushy similarly lets go, pulling back to unlatch the safety hook on her helmet.

Right, people were supposed to pick burgers up. Well, that wasn't going to work, not when she couldn't afford to be seen. The criminal exhales sharply, cursing herself for forgetting to remember that as she leans over to grab her knife. Oddly enough, Queen doesn't question her cutting up a hamburger, instead pushing the fries from one end of their container to the other, looking into them like a wishing well. She does take a few bites through all of her deadpan observation, which Bushy categorizes as a major improvement.

Exactly when Bushranger decides that her companion's been messing around too long, their waiter arrives with the check. Not even looking at it, Bushy hands Wolf a crisp, too-clean hundred dollar bill. "Keep the change."

The waiter nods, slipping the money in his pocket. "My shift's almost over," he notes, leaning on the booth across from theirs. "So if you - "

He's cut off by an annoyed sigh from the criminal. "I get that you're looking for _companionship_ on this _dark and stormy night,"_ she drawls out, sarcasm flooding her voice, "But you're most assuredly _not_ welcome to third-wheel."

"I wasn't going to interrupt your date," he replies, rolling his eyes. A pause. "Okay, I wanted to see if I could get into a free movie."

"Dumbass," Bushy chuckles. "The tip on the bill is more than enough, and you _still_ want to - "

"I'm a broke waiter. Besides, popcorn. With butter."

A sigh. "Okay, granted. But we're not even going to one. We're not going anywhere that requires an entry fee, either, so wipe that idea from your mind."

Wolf grins, crossing his legs. "So you're headed home, then?" The gleam in his eyes means exactly one thing - he hops the step separating the booths to whisper something into Queen's ear. The monarch turns a bright red to it.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," Bushranger mutters. "Are you done screwing around?"

"Depends if you're coming back next week," Wolf retorts. "You know the easiest way to shut me up."

"With a bullet to the brain," she chafes. "Yeah, fucking fine I'll be back."

"Backstreet's back - "

"Fuck off!" Bushy shakes her head, already sliding out of her seat. Wolf howls in delight, laughing at how much he's riled her up, even as Queen deftly maneuvers past him. As the monarch catches up to her companion, the latter queries, "What shit did he tell you?"

The royal chuckles, blushing again as she looks off to the side. "Promise me you won't cause a scene."

A cross of the arms. "Fine. Spill."

"The helmet - " she, too, wheezes, "stays on - "

"I am _going_ to fucking kill him," Bushranger growls. "Mark my words."

As they leave the restaurant, Bushy holds the door open for a cooling-off monarch. "So, where are we going now?" Her tone is interested, not annoyed. Fuck. Right.

"It's a surprise," she replies, smiling to herself. So it can't be somewhere they'd have to pay for, and it also has to be something she'd be interested in. Ah, shit. There's one place she can think of...

The radio's been gossiping for almost half an hour now by the time they arrive. Every station seems to want to talk about the show, especially since both the Queen and the criminal widely considered her greatest adversary are on it and not killing each other like they're killing their songs. That spotting with Frilly, Dragonfly and Puppet is viral on practically all Australian media by now and the whispered rumors fill the Queenmobile with uncertainty. Each time Bushy goes to shut it off, though, the monarch bats her hand away, so she leaves it. Maybe she likes to hear the gossip? Knowing her, though, it's probably to hurt herself over it.

Bushranger swallows that thought, popping her door open and hopping out, swiftly pacing to the other side to help her companion, who descends gracefully, lifting the edges of her skirt. She's not wearing the poofy dress, but a striped gold-and-black maxi sort instead, and by God does she pull it off.

"Where precisely are we?" She looks back to the shorter woman, who smirks under her helmet.

"Do you mind a little walking?"

"Not at all," the monarch smiles slightly, and the world freezes again for a split-second. "Is this somewhere you've been before?"

"A couple of times," Bushy nods, already setting off on the trail marked in front of them. Queen matches her stride, hands clasped in front of her; every now and then, she lifts her skirt to avoid it getting snagged on stray twigs and rocks. "It's not too popular, especially at night, but I prefer it dark."

The monarch nods, pressing just a little bit closer to her companion as the trail narrows slightly. Bushranger's heart pounds fast on her armor; she bites her tongue to try to calm it down. _Keep your cool._ "So, uh... you like it out here?" _Not cool._

Queen looks up to the sky, and there's something in the way the starlight dances on her features that makes Bushy wonder, not for the first time, how someone like her could hate themself so much that they would drive knives in their own back just to stop the ricochet. "It's pretty," the royal admits. "But..." A sigh.

She fucked it again, huh? "But?"

Queen pauses, catching the fabric of her dress once more. "...I don't know," she admits, and it's a blatant lie. She _does_ know, but the words hang unspoken between them.

She won't push it. "That's okay. If you want to talk, though... I won't judge."

"You're the last person I'd expect not to."

A few more minutes in silence; then, the criminal speaks up again. "You ready for tomorrow?"

"You know it." Queen's on her left side, so Bushy's having a hard time watching her. She resorts to turning her head just enough so that it looks like she's just interested and not obvious she's staring.

"Whatcha singing?"

"Selena Gomez. I have to _try_ to appear hip to the times, or whatever the kids say."

Bushranger chuckles. "Nice. I decided on somethin' by those Lady Antebellum guys?"

"Lady A," the monarch corrects. "The word _antebellum_ is offensive to African-American communities, so the band changed their name."

"Lady A, okay," she slides the name into the backwaters of her memory. "Anyway. They have that _Need You Now_ thing? I thought it wasn't that bad."

Queen chuckles. "Not that bad," she repeats. "Divine compliment. Just wonderful."

"For what it's worth, you're not that bad either," she mumbles under her breath. Noting that they've reached the end of the trail, the criminal nods. "Welcome to the Barrenjoey Lighthouse."

The royal looks up to the tower in front of them. "Are we going inside?"

"Do you want to? I'll break the lock in under sixty seconds."

"Idiot."

 _"Your_ idiot," Bushranger hums, nonchalant, though she's fully aware she's playing the game fast and loose.

"...My idiot," she agrees after a second, and even though Bushy knows it's a lie, it's such a beautiful one that she wouldn't mind hearing it again.

"I was really thinking about the ocean view," the shorter of the two explains. "It's quite pleasant."

"Lead the way then, sweetheart." Ah, the game was on.

"Alright, Princess." She bumps Queen's shoulder lightly with her own, setting off. Judging by the way it takes her companion a good three seconds to gain her composure, Bushranger classifies that as a goal.

She finds a spot where the stars shine just right, standing there for a moment before taking a seat. The royal similarly falls to the sand, leaning on Bushy's right side with a soft giggle.

"You alright there?" she asks after a few seconds, glancing out the side of the slot in her helmet.

"A little cold," Queen admits.

Before she knows it, Bushy's shrugging off her coat with a pseudo-exasperated sigh. "We can't have that, now can we?" She drapes the garment over her companion's shoulders, noting how she almost rocks back into the warmth of the fabric.

Queen hums as a response, sliding her arms into the coat. They don't speak for a long moment, watching the waves come out and back in again.

"Hey, is it okay if I call you that?" Why is she even asking? That's not in the rules.

"Princess?" The monarch offers a bemused smile.

"Yeah. Cessa for short?" Well, now that's just stupid.

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "If I say no, you'll do it anyway. I don't mind."

"Okay, Cessa." Bushy doesn't miss the way the royal smiles just a little bit softer at that and resolves to use the name more often. She glances to the ocean for a second, then back at Queen. The starlight shines in her eyes as she pulls the criminal's coat closer around her, and God, it would be the perfect moment.

It _would_ be, if any of this were real. If it weren't just a sick game she hit play on.

As it stands, Bushranger just has to hold her cards close to her chest, perfect the poker face that's tearing apart like a deck full of aces. _Only a few more weeks,_ she promises herself. _Then it's over._

Queen's fallen asleep on her shoulder. Bushy sighs, smiling under her helmet as she cautiously pulls herself up, transitioning into an almost-effortless bridal carry. The monarch opens an eye, then closes it, pressing against her companion. "We're going home, Cessa," the criminal explains.

"You'll take care of me, right?" The words are slurred together, a testament to just how tired Queen was.

What's she supposed to say to that? "Yeah, of course I will."

She smiles, resting her head on Bushy's chestplate, and the way home suddenly seems so much shorter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just... I love them, okay?


	6. Carte Blanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 5; we will always be chasing our starlights.

They're back at the _Masked Singer_ filming studio again. It seemed everyone had put in the effort to get there early, so they had a chunk of time before Hostman showed up. Currently, Frillneck, Puppet and Kitten are engaged in a three-way extended rock-paper-scissors war, most of whose hand signals Bushranger wouldn't recognize even if she had a translator book. She's snuggled up on Queen's side, making sure the application is working if she needs it and trying to ignore how natural it all feels.

God, she's an idiot for breaking her own rules. Don't fall in love, and _don't_ fall in love with your rival. Bushy sighs, closing her eyes for a long moment. _Idiot._

Usher chooses that moment to show up, leaning on the doorway to the stage. "How are we all today?"

Bushranger shrugs, not really caring about the three different ways the trio tell the host they're doing great. Cessa rests an arm on her companion's shoulder and Bushy feels herself melt again. _Get a grip. It's not real._

"Puppet's up first tonight!" Hostman exclaims with the enthusiasm of a sadist burning ants. Said wooden man hops up, heading for the stage while whistling some tune that Bushranger can only assume is his performance for the day.

The background is insanely distracting, the dancers look like they haunt people for a living, and Puppet certainly doesn't deny the whole "eating your dreams" theme. Yet the guy has an _incredible_ vocal range that this song only attempts to do justice. The first low note spooks Bushy; the second has her ready to shoot. A gentle knock on the shoulder from Queen is enough to kick her from the hypervigilant state she's almost always in at the studio. Bushranger tries to sink back into her familiar resting spot while Puppet holds his ending notes, but, for _fuck's_ sake, Cessa's up next and she can't. She makes a mental note to threaten Usher into having their song slots be adjacent next week.

Puppet returns to continue the epic high-stakes hand-motion battle and Frillneck and Kitten return to not realizing that their opponent almost always throws paper. Bushranger sighs, forcing herself to sit up straight while she watches the television screen, raising both eyebrows at the stage setup. Yeah, sure, she'd make fun of Queenie for her obvious kink for good designs, but the beauty through simplicity of today's backdrop? She could do it as a career if they stole her crown.

Again, today's performance is a vocal-based one. All the better - too many flashing colors both distract Bushy and press upon the corner of her mind that's still convinced there are bombs around every bend. Maybe it's a good thing she doesn't notice the subtle homage in the soft pulses of red and the smoky lights. What she does know is that her Cessa (her? Cessa?) deserves the goddamned _world_ and whoever broke her heart is gonna pay for it. In blood.

The slight warble in Queen's tone betrays the intensity of her emotions. If Hostman wasn't sleazing around the door, Bushranger would have already stormed on stage to fuck up the people who were deriving joy from watching their monarch bare her soul. From her tally, she's only got about a hundred to go before she crosses into quadruple digits. (The count includes all deaths of police and civilians at their hands; whether it was through Light's charms, Mel's force, Cap's skill, or her arson; and her solo work.)

So maybe it's better not to break that particular record.

A tap on her helmet. Bushy blinks, moving back instinctively - then, she breaks out into a calm yet wide smile as Cessa sits down next to her. She's all too happy to resume her position on the royal's skirt, closing her eyes and tuning out the entirety of Kitten's performance, which she only remembers as being very okay.

"You're up now, dear."

Bushranger hums, confused - _ah._ Right. She's here. The criminal shakes her head to try to brush off the vestiges of fatigue that color her view, pulling herself off the couch and heading to the stage.

What the hell were the trees doing on set? It takes Bushy an embarrassingly long moment to realize that she didn't ask for them. Which means precisely one thing - she'll need to screw with Queen's stage design next week as revenge. But that's next week. Today is today.

She stands there at her starting position, takes a deep breath. Pounding shots with tears running down her cheeks in some shitty bar in downtown Canberra, Alien by her side drinking out the same glass, and it's the only place the paparazzi won't go 'cause they're more scared of dying than both a murderer who was supposed to get the death penalty and her lawyer. Slurred words whispered down a furry neck, rolls of bandages wrapped tight so he doesn't know what demon lies underneath, and if it kills the howling that haunts her night after night she'll do anything, anything at all.

 _What are you doing with yourself? Who are you?_ The storm swells in her mind once more and it's all Bushy can do to force it back into its corner of destruction. She has to stay strong.

No half measures. No apologies. And, most importantly, show no weakness.

_Are you doing all of this because of a psychopath who never cared about you?_

She doesn't get the time to deliberate that before the music begins. The cataclysm roars at her armor, begs to tear out, and she knows she's got the right mood for this song. Let's go, Rain.

_"Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor, reaching for the phone 'cause I can't fight it anymore... And I wonder if I ever cross your mind? For me, it happens all the time..."_

The song rolls on. Bushranger's aware of how she's singing in time to it, but it feels like she's somewhere else, living someone else's life, and everyone's expectations ring through her helmet as she goes for some holds of her own. It's not like she's supposed to be here, not like she's meant to last.

If Bushy presses just a little closer to Queen when she's backstage again, neither of them mention it. It's hysterical that Cessa's the only one that's able to calm her down right now, and so easily, too - just a firm half-hug and a tiny smile are enough to replace the anxiety in Bushranger's stomach with a better yet even more bittersweet variety. And if it hurts, well, she's a sucker for pain anyway.

Frillneck's last of the night. _Can't Hold Us_ is another song she could play on maximum volume during a bank robbery, and Frilly's choreo performance, complete with no fewer than six background dancers, makes her exhausted just _looking_ at it. How he could sing and do that was beyond her.

Bushy checks the application as Frills returns and throws himself into his seat. She makes sure the numbers will work, then slides her phone back in her pocket, looking up wordlessly at Queen while trying not to appear obvious. It takes Hostman a few minutes to call everyone back up to the stage, a couple of extra seconds for Bushranger to reluctantly let go, and they're all out within a minute or so, the movements now practically trained into them. Look scared, then drop the act when they tell you you're safe, then say goodbye to the night's biggest loser and pretend you care while sliding out the door.

It's, again, no surprise that Kitten leaves today. The Group A trio all seem genuinely saddened, which distracts from Bushy's absolute lack of true emotion. When the four return, Usher hands each a piece of paper along with instructions for the next group performance. Oh, she _cannot_ wait for this. (And that's only partially sarcastic.)

The car ride home is almost too quiet. If Bushranger catches the drift just right, smoke invades all her senses, and she suffocates quietly to keep it under control. She should know from that that tonight's going to be one of the bad ones.

There's fire.

Bushy opens her eyes, but she can't see anything, but there's fire. She rolls over in bed, then stumbles out. Almost tripping over her helmet, which is sitting on the floor, she staggers to where she remembers the dresser was - she almost misses it, but catches a corner and slides to the center. She opens her eyes again.

She can't see anything.

But there's fire, and it's burning, and it _hurts_ like _hell._

A hand instinctively reaches for the left side of her face, and before she knows it, she's already scratching at the scar tissue. It's burning. She should get some water. Water will help this time, even if it never did before.

Bushranger presses her right hand to the wall, following it until she feels the door. She pops it open after a minute of trying to unlock it, then almost falls forward into the hallway. Catching herself at the last second, she slides along the wall. One door, two, three. Bushy doesn't bother to test the lock, instead slamming the door open with her shoulder and carrying herself over to the sink before collapsing onto it. The screaming in her ears is deafening as she frantically searches for the faucet handle, almost yanking it off with how hard she turns it. She sticks her hands under the water, then recoils.

It _burns._

The roof's about to fall down on top of her. The walls are going to crumble. _His_ voice cuts through the shrieking. _"This is what you get for leaving a brother behind, Rain."_

Bushy opens her eyes again and everything's still black. She continues itching at herself, even though she knows it won't help, because maybe this time it will.

_"You're going to hell with us, and you're dying alone. Nobody's going to miss you. They're gonna celebrate instead."_

She vaguely realizes how she's trembling on the sink's edge, coughing up breaths in an attempt not to go under. She has to get out of here. She's going to die.

Bushy takes a single step back; then, her knees buckle and she finds herself on the floor, trying to shift into a less pathetic position. Because that's what she is right now: Pathetic. Weak.

The fire swirls around her, and it _burns,_ and the voices are louder and louder, and there's blood sticking to her fingers and the roof's gonna collapse and she's dead in the water and she's _going_ to die and -

A gasping choke tears itself from Bushranger's throat as she rocks back, hitting her head on the cabinet under the sink. She presses a hand to her left eye before hissing as it agitates the ripped-open wound. It's _agony,_ and even if she knows, deep down, that it'll end once she sobs herself to sleep, she's still absolutely petrified.

_"Nobody's going to miss you, Rain."_

"Fuck _off,"_ she grates, even as she draws her knees closer to her chest, letting her head snap back against the cabinet's door while continuing to pick at the scars, hoping in vain that it stops the burning. She's vaguely aware of how the water's running in the sink, edging towards overflow. She can't find it in herself to care.

Footsteps approach - she presses back against the cabinet on instinct, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Is everything alright? I thought I heard - "

The light slams on, the fire burns harder, and Bushy _whimpers_ (God, she's pathetic), recoiling further into herself as she wraps her right arm around her shaking knees, dropping her chin on them while her left hand still rips at the exposed skin. She doesn't dare open her eyes - she's too scared that she's lost both halves now.

Out of all the cunts in the world, it had to be the _one_ she couldn't kill. Fuck her, really.

She's not quite sure what to expect - whether her intruder's going to run or laugh or hurt her and she's had it too good too long, hasn't she? She should be _dead_ and instead she's being treated as pseudo-royalty. _You should be dead._ The voices latch on to that fact, amplifying it hundreds of times over, and it's all Bushy can do to bite back a guttural scream, instead forcing it down to a shaky groan.

_"Stop fucking crying, bitch, you're just gonna rust up your fucking helmet."_

Even as ninety-five percent of her is firmly focused on the fact that she's a friendless, worthless sack of shit who's going to die right now for all her sins, the other five percent is hyperfocused on the sounds of the other person, trying to ascertain exactly what they're up to. They stand in the doorway for a long minute, _probably filming her so they can make Channel 5 news later,_ then take a single step closer, closing the door. One more.

"Is it okay if I touch you right now?"

What kind of a stupid question was that? Bushy forces her left eye open before remembering it's the one that doesn't work and letting it close, dragging her fingers down to her jawline. She tries to come up with a real response, but the fire's burning and it hurts so bad. "I'm... dying - " That's the best she has? Wow.

A cold hand encircles her wrist firmly, pulling her hand away from her face - she dimly recognizes it's sticky with blood. "You're not dying. I promise, it'll be alright."

She's speaking even before the words line up in her mind. "Burning... they - they want me dead... I should be dead..."

"Who wants you dead?"

 _"Everyone,"_ and here Bushranger finds herself coughing on her words again. "People... people meet me and they want me dead... I don't blame them, I _should_ be dead, I don't deserve any of this - "

"Bushy..."

The fire burns even brighter and she presses harder against the cabinet door, tugging away from the cold hand's grip so she can work on trying to relieve the pain. It doesn't let go. She whimpers, waiting for the roof to cave in. Oh, God, the roof was going to cave in and - "G-get out of here... I don't - want you to die - "

"We're not going to die. You're safe with me. I know you're scared right now - and that's okay - but we're not in any danger."

She tries to find the words to reply to that but can't. A sob wracks her body and she leans forward, resting her head on her knees again as she pulls away once more. This time, instead of letting go, the hand slides down into her own. It's so familiar - she knows _exactly_ who this is - but she can't figure it out.

"How can I help you?"

The request is quiet yet sincere, somehow managing to cut straight through all the screaming and wailing around them. Before she realizes it, she's replying. "Don't... don't leave me... don't leave me here alone..."

"I'm not going to leave you."

"O-okay..." Bushy hiccups, wrapping her free arm tighter around her knees. It burns so badly, but she fights the urge to keep scratching at the scars - it's what the other person probably wants from her.

"Can you tell me what's going on right now?"

She nods, gasping for a deep breath before beginning. "It's - it's burning, and they all want me dead... they want me to fucking die... a-and this house, it's gonna collapse, and it's burning, and I should die here because I'm nothing but a fucking _leech..."_

"What makes you say that?" The cold hand squeezes her own.

"It's fucking true, isn't it? All I'm doing is leeching off Cessa... I-I'm supposed to be the strong one 'cause I know she's dealing with a lot of shit and she needs someone who she can rely on, and look at me... I don't even know what she sees in me to keep me around! I mean, I want to think she doesn't hate me, but I know she does, and I know she's probably gonna kill me anyway once the whole show is over - "

"I don't think Cessa wants you dead. She really likes being your friend."

"Yeah," Bushy mumbles, squeezing her eyes even tighter shut. "I fucking know we're _just friends._ You don't have to rub it in."

The voice is quiet, then. She wishes it would talk, because the screaming only gets louder in the quiet, the crying and the crackling of flames. Somewhere in the distance, a bomb goes off, and she locks up, falling the few inches forward onto a cold torso. She doesn't have the energy to get up, so she lies there, probably staining the voice's clothes as she sobs quietly. Another cold hand finds the curve in her back, resting on it as if by nature. "Can you take some deep breaths for me?"

Bushranger nods, even as another wave of terror washes over her, causing her to seize up again. "I can - try..."

"Okay. Let's start by breathing in..."

She coughs a few seconds in, mumbling a "Sorry" as she presses into the familiar coolness of the voice's body.

"There's no reason to be sorry, Bushy. You're doing great."

"I'm not," she mutters, shaking her head.

"You are, sweetheart. Let's try it again, alright?" At her nodding into the voice's chest, it continues. "Breathe in... then out. Now in... now out. Look how well you're doing. In... out. In... out. Is that helping?" She nods again, too tired to find the words. The voice continues leading as the fire slowly dims, then splutters out, as the cataclysm of wailing dies down to just the repetitive whispering of in, then out. Bushy finds herself drifting off and doesn't fight it, working her right arm free to cling onto the voice's back instead. She's... not scared anymore. It might just be alright after all.

Bushranger opens her eyes to a white-tiled bathroom floor. She blinks once, then twice -

"Are you feeling any better?"

What was Queen - oh. Oh God. Bushy starts, pulling away to realize that the royal's currently lying on her back on the floor, watching her with her eyebrows raised. She pieces together what she remembers and figures out that she must have fallen asleep on Cessa, who must have been -

"Yeah. You, uh - " The criminal brings a hand up to her left eye, feeling incredibly exposed without her helmet. "I - you shouldn't have had to see that..."

Queen exhales, shifting up into a seated position. "How long has it been going on?"

She shrugs, letting her hand drop. She contemplates lying, but what good would that do? Besides, she shouldn't lie to Cessa. "I guess since the squad was still together... it really depends, though. Sometimes I'll go several months without any incidents, sometimes there's three or four of them in a week."

The taller nods, glancing off to the side as she thinks this through. "How do you normally deal with it?"

Another shrug. "Wait until it goes away? What else am I supposed to do?"

"Bushy..." Queen's brow creases; she looks at her companion with pure pity in her eyes. "You shouldn't have to go through that alone."

The shorter crosses her arms, but it's in a relaxed way, just to keep doing something. "And why not?"

The monarch blinks, confusion written all over her. "You looked like you were going to die _just_ from how much you were panicking. You were talking about how there was fire everywhere and you were supposed to be dead and how I should get away so I don't die, too. And you're telling me that's normal?"

Well, she knew it wasn't _normal,_ but at the same time it wasn't like it was anything new. "I guess?"

"Oh, Bushy..." Cessa rocks forward, enveloping her in a tight hug. After a second, Bushranger returns the embrace. "I'm so sorry..."

"I don't know why you are, but okay," she mutters.

"The next time it happens, call me if you can, okay? You were making such a racket, I was scared you'd get hurt."

The criminal snorts to that. "I'm made of metal," she reminds the royal. "It's practically impossible for me to get hurt."

Queen lets go of her to rock back, cupping Bushy's left cheek in her hand. "You were before," she states. "And I don't want it to happen again."

She feels herself leaning into the touch ever-so-slightly, closing her left eye (as if that changes much of anything). "Alright, Cessa," she agrees after a second. "I'll do my best." Why is she okay with this? She works _alone,_ doesn't she? But the monarch smiles at her, and she's down for the count again.

"Thank you." They fall into a silence at that, words dangling from the ceiling that beg to be said. Bushranger wants to pull them down, to tell Queen how every little thing she does sends her companion into overdrive. How she doesn't want to leave when everything's over, how she's almost too scared to because if something happens to the monarch after she's gone she'll never forgive herself for it. How... how deep she's fallen. That she knows realistically there's no way Cessa even swings her way, and even if she did, there's no way she'd fall in love with someone like her, and that's okay, but could she please stop being so fucking amazing because it's driving her up a wall and she's dangerously close to driving _her_ up the wall and stealing just a taste of what wasn't hers. Or maybe more than that, if she's okay with it.

"Bushy?"

She hates the way she perks up at the name. "Yeah?"

"You alright?"

A pause. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Queen chuckles, finally letting her hand drop. "You're kind of staring through me," she offers.

"Or maybe I'm staring _at_ you," she corrects before her brain has time to catch up, winking to accentuate the point.

The compliment is well-received, judging by how crimson Cessa becomes and how she glances off to the side. "You don't have to play with me like this, you know."

"Isn't that part of the game, though?" Bushranger raises her eyebrows, rocking forward just a bit. Queen shifts back on instinct, hitting the wall, but she's not looking for an exit, instead watching her intently, hooked on her next move. "Since, you know, we're _dating_ and all." She stretches the word out - it's another beautiful lie, and she wants to savor its bitter taste in her mouth.

"Are we, though?" The royal exhales, and Bushy can't hide her disappointment, letting her casual smirk drop into a neutral expression.

"Well, I mean - "

"Exactly." She blinks, reaching up to swipe a few strands of hair from her eyes. "I get that we're doing it for the cameras, but I don't get why you insist on pretending even when nobody's around. It's just a game for you, isn't it, just like you said? To see how far you can push the limits, to lie to me again and again until half of what's keeping me together is my _stupid_ belief that you _care._ And - and now I'm making this about me again."

"Then make it about you," Bushranger decides. "What's going on, Cessa?"

"What's going on," she repeats, slowly, "Is that I think I'm in love with you." Her shoulders drop, as if it's something to be ashamed of; she looks down to her skirt, playing with the fabric absent-mindedly. "And it's stupid of me, because it would never work out even if you _did_ like me like that. Because I can't have people _knowing_ that I like girls, and especially not - "

"Not a wanted criminal like me," Bushy intones - she's lost track of how many beats her heart's skipped. "Yeah. I get it." She pauses there to give Queen a chance to speak, but they're just plunged into silence for a minute. "Look, Cessa, I..."

Words hammer at her chest, float through the air, all the things she wants to say spiraling around them. But she doesn't need words for this, does she?

Bushranger inhales softly, then bridges the gap. Cessa's cold against her - she always has been and always will be, and it's just another little part of her charm. But the way she lets out a little gasp before sinking into it, eyes fluttering shut like this is the only thing that matters? Yeah, _that's_ intoxicating. Bushy slides up, straddling her - her - fuck it, her _girlfriend's_ lap and noting with satisfaction how Queen curls into her, accommodating perfectly. There are fingers carding through her hair, practically begging for her to stay put, and she finds her own running slowly down the sides of Cessa's nightgown, claiming every slightly-too-angular curve as hers. When she's finally content, Bushranger pulls back - but there's a chaser after every shot and she finds herself tugged back into the masterpiece pinned to the wall by none other than the masterpiece herself. She wouldn't give this up for anything in the world - not the diamonds or the bills or even a way to go back and set herself on the right track. If this is wrong, who cares what's right?

By the time they both seem to agree to let go, Queen's officially a mess, gasping for breath with a smile she's sure she shares. "Bushy..." She's almost _begging_ for more with how the timbre of her voice quivers, and Bushranger's fallen in love all fucking over again, and it's fucking _amazing._

Even so, she can't stop a playful gruffness from entering her voice - she knows Cessa will understand. "I hate you marginally less than the other seven billion cunts we share this Earth with."

"Love you too, Bushy." Cold arms wrap around her waist, a face burrows into her shoulder, and she's in _heaven._ She returns the hug, listening to their heartbeats synchronize, and if the world ended right now, she wouldn't particularly mind.

Ah, she would do anything for this woman. Anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I love them... so much...


	7. Carte Rouge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Week 6; in the smoke, new visions appear.

The silence is easy now, Bushranger figures. Cessa's sitting next to her in the passenger seat, eyes closed and with a soft smile - every time she glances over, she understands what distracted driving means. Queen's dress is taking up the rear.

The criminal pulls into the parking lot and the familiar ritual of trying to park in as many spaces as humanly possible begins. She veers in sideways, making six. Cessa opens her eyes, looking outside, then sighs good-naturedly. Bushy smiles under her helmet, sliding neatly into a single spot. "Better?"

"Much." The royal looks over as she parks, then hops out the car, dashing across to open the door. Queen chuckles at her _girlfriend's_ (fuck yes) antics, taking her hand to help her out. Snapping on the dress takes only a minute, though she'd much rather be - Bushranger coughs, biting her tongue to stop that particular train of thought before it derailed. She pulls her phone out, falling into step next to Cessa as she checks that the provisions she set in place are still there. They are. Good.

There are four people left in the competition - her, Queen, Frills and Puppet. One's gotta go, and she knows _exactly_ who will, even before the show begins.

The criminal adjusts her helmet as she kicks open the door to the studio, leading the way down the twisting halls to the contestants' lounge. They're the first ones there today, which is nice. If there weren't cameras around, Bushy would probably have flipped her visor up by now. As it stands, she flops into her corner seat with no intentions of staying there for more than a few seconds. Cessa sits down next to her and she rocks onto the monarch's skirt with a happy hum, closing her eyes as she feels an arm wrapping around her shoulders, pulling her closer. They fit perfectly together. God, she's in deep.

They're going to have to sit down and figure out how the fuck they'll pull this off without the entirety of Australia suspecting something's up. Bushranger hasn't told her about the press conference she'd found out was planned for after the finals; she didn't want to break the perfect illusion that _this_ \- what they had - could go undetected forever. It's already a hot topic on the Internet and there were _going_ to be questions about it all.

If they decide it's better to cut ties, if she only gets this week - no, she _wouldn't_ let Cessa go. Not like _this._ Fuck the antisocial media. Fuck them!

"You okay?" Queen asks, and Bushy realizes she's been locking up again.

"Yeah," she mumbles, then sighs, admitting it. "Not really."

"Nervous?"

"We can go with that." She drops her head, eyes tracing the familiar streaks of rust and forgotten gunfights in her armor. "I just... worry too much, I guess."

"A little bit," the royal agrees. "But it's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?"

"It feels like it."

Instead of replying, Cessa only tightens the half-hug. Bushranger exhales, unable to fight the smile that's tugging at her lips. That strange flutter in her chest that begs for more, more, more is going _wild,_ and it's so fucking silly to think that anything like this were even remotely possible, but - but it _is._ And it's _amazing._

First Frillneck, then Puppet come into the lounge, and it's suddenly time to begin. Luckily enough, the boys were first, so she doesn't have to get up just yet. She doesn't even know if she _wants_ to.

At the first notes of Puppet's performance, Bushy knows she made the right decision. The song's not bad, he can sing, but if she has to endure one more week of that creepy-ass smile, she's _going_ to set the guy on fire. Queen will understand. He's got that shiftiness in his eyes of a career con artist, someone who joined the trade not because they had nothing but because they had everything. A person with no rules is one with no humanity, after all. Puppet looks like the kind of guy who'll talk you into a sweet deal and leave you holding the pistol when the cops show up.

She supposes she should pay attention to the actual song. It's got Spanish, again, for whatever fucking reason. "No need to point out the fact that you have an eighth-grade education," she mumbles, and the way Cessa tries to stop her laughter, giggling into her glove, is _so_ damn adorable.

_ How could you ever hate yourself? _

Frills hops up off the couch, detouring to flick Bushy's helmet on his way to the stage. He grins at the middle finger he receives from the annoyed criminal, pacing down the hallway to the stage door. They wheel out a literal wall of television sets, along with a few extra scattered along the set, and Frillneck opens the door, shaking his frills to presumably air them out.

Today's song choice is an oldie - it's vaguely familiar to her, but not to the point of actually knowing the lyrics. Always time to learn though, she supposes, hoping the judges shut the fuck up before she actually makes good on her numerous threats to blast holes through them all. Bushranger looks up again - Queen catches her gaze, tilting her head slightly. "You like it?"

"Sappy," she hums. "A song you listen to on repeat so you can get your mind off shit. Good though."

Cessa doesn't press it, and Bushy's honestly kind of grateful. _"Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over - hey now, hey now, when the world comes in, they come, they come to build a wall between us... We know that they won't win..."_ Frillneck's frills fall back down at the end of the performance, and he seems - a little unhappy. As if he were expecting something to happen.

She'll have to text him later, then. The criminal begrudgingly pulls herself off the couch, rolling her shoulders. She passes Frilly on the way to the stage, offering a "You did great out there!" He seems to be a little cheered up by it. That's good, at least.

Cessa was on the phone for a good half-hour with the stage crew, so she knows there's going to be several background dancers and a theme that ties everything together. She'd let Bushy do her set this week; this meant that the royal would have a mic stand and that's about it.

Today's song rips through her veins already, the taste of smoke lingering on her tongue. She sighs, inhaling sharply as she steps onto the stage. True to her assumption, there are two dancers on stage and at least four more in the wings. Bushranger puts them on a hard ignore. Let them do what they want. This song was hers, and hers only.

_ "Believe in me, Rain. All you gotta do is stick a few rounds in that cunt - and you'll have more than you could've ever asked for." _

The small part of her that's never learned to let go falls back into his arms, imagines him as he was with his smile that could melt even the coldest heart and laughter that reached his eyes. She always sees him as he was, not as he became, chain smoking to scare off the demons that haunted his dreams, a rough hand on her neck and a tormented cry for help.

_ "You love me, don't you?" _

And every answer she could give would have been wrong.

The music snaps her away from that runaway train of thought. Bushy closes her eyes, then opens them again. God, there were so many fire machines today. She supposes it matches with the lyrics, though. _"I was a liar, I gave in to the fire, I know I should've fought it, at least I'm being honest... Feel like a failure, 'cause I know that I failed you, I should've done you better, 'cause you don't want a liar..."_

She flicks out her coat in a power pose, stepping forward and trying to black out her vision. Focus on the vocals. Focus on the music. It's so much easier when she pretends Cessa's next to her, curled up and leaning on Bushy's side with that soft smile that could start and end wars on demand. They'd aired out the abandoned wing, Queen deciding she quite enjoyed the acoustics of the room (whatever the fuck that meant), and they practiced for each other, with each other. And if she snuck a few kisses 'cause nobody was looking, well, that was their little secret.

Bushranger smiles to herself under her helmet, vaguely realizing the song's over as she hits the ending notes. The judges, as always, waste some time talking about it before she's let go. The criminal makes her way back to the lounge, tagging her girlfriend (she still can't believe it) in with a quick hug and a stereotypical "Kick ass out there, Queenie," to which the monarch only grins with that knowing expression, and she's down for the count _again._ She doesn't deserve Cessa, really.

But if she has her... then she'll do anything to keep her. Whatever makes her happy.

Bushy sighs, eyes firmly glued to the television screen even as she fishes her phone out of her pocket.

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:19 _

_ what's up, Frills? _

_ Leliyn, today at 20:19 _

_ wdym? _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:20 _

_ you look like someone kicked your pet dog in front of you _

_ but you couldn't do shit to them _

_ so what up? _

_ Leliyn, today at 20:21 _

_ nothing really _

_ just _

_ im just hoping wiz is watching... _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:22 _

_ awwwwwwwwww someone's in love _

_ can guarantee he's watching if humanly possible though _

_ that man is really into you, he won't miss ya on tv _

_ Leliyn, today at 20:23 _

_ :) _

Bushy slides her phone in her pocket just in time. Cessa, on stage, taps her microphone to test it, then begins. _"Somebody said you've got a new friend - does she love you better than I can? There's a big black sky over my town... I know where you're at, I bet she's 'round..."_

She doesn't _need_ a stage. She doesn't need a bevy of background dancers to shine, not like Bushy does. A part of her wonders why Queen even wanted help to try to win the competition - it's not like she was ever going to lose. She's almost, _almost_ perfect. (Needs to learn how to shoot and not just fence. At least an automatic. That can be worked on, though.)

And then there's Bushranger, who's barely holding herself together, who snaps like a rubber band when anyone gets close, who's scared of the world and of her own mind. Even now, the distortion seizes at the corners of her vision, fire pulsing in and out. What the hell does Cessa see in her?

She has no fucking clue.

Bushy inhales shakily, letting the last notes of Queen's performance reverberate through her helmet. Do they have anything to do tonight? Maybe they could watch a movie. Yeah, they could watch a movie and she could fall asleep with Cessa snuggling into her. That'd be good. Fuck, she's acting like a sad two-year-old who scraped her knee and wants to get a lollipop, but...

But she's still as weak as she was when she _was_ two. They've got a group performance, don't they? She doesn't care about it. She just wants to be held tight, reassured, told... that she _is_ enough. That it's going to be alright, even if nothing will be.

"Bushy?"

It's her. She blinks once, twice, then pulls herself up. A pause - she falls forward, enveloping Cessa in a hug. The distortion rages on, and it's terrifying, honestly, how easily she could just snap her lover's neck, load Frillneck up with bullets, and set the whole room on fire, leaving Puppet to burn like a fucking Guy Fawkes effigy. It's what Light would have wanted. It's what a part of her still wants.

"We gotta go out?" she mumbles, barely noticing how she's shivering in Queen's steady arms. Out of the corner of her vision, when the flames don't eat away at it, she spots a Frilly-shaped blob distracting a Puppet-shaped one with another insanely complicated knockoff of rock-paper-scissors.

A soft exhale. "I can try to get them to lengthen the commercial break," the monarch bargains. "What's going on?"

And she's fucking _pathetic,_ isn't she, just fucking dumping all her issues on Cessa who's already got so much to deal with, and - and - "I don't know..."

"That's okay."

It's not, not at all. Bushy _knows_ that. She's pulsating wildly, emotions she's kept locked away in her heart-shaped box for years roaring in the storm. Why is she so fucking _vulnerable_ all of a sudden?

She needs time to think, to figure out whatever was going on and stop it. She's not fucking used to allowing herself to _feel_ things and it's confusing. Downward spiral, blood on her hands, should try to decide on a handbasket for when she dies and goes to hell.

She's going to hell.

For some reason, this scares her, even though she's known it since before the first fire. Death presses in upon her from all sides, hammering on her helmet. Ding-dong, the bitch is dead, and when the villains fall, nobody weeps.

Is this another one of those night terrors, just not at night? It feels different. Where the terrors wail with things that aren't there, all of this is so fucking real it's even scarier. It's real. She's going to die - maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but soon for sure. And nobody's gonna care.

_I told you so,_ Light whispers in her head, grinding a cigarette on the countertop and then lighting another one, smoke filtering through the air. The gleam of the fire dances wildly in his eyes, and the part of her that still loves him loses her breath as his grip tightens on her skin, holding her in place. _Rain, why do you think she cares? She's using you, that's it._

Bushy pulls away from Queen, stumbling backwards - she hits the couch and falls back on it, squeezing her eyes shut once more. Fire burns through her mind, leaving tracks in her shattered memory. It was so much easier, so much _better_ when they were all together, her and Light and Mel and Cappy, and they were _happy,_ and it was _good._

They used to play Cluedo, replaced the missing cards with cutouts from cereal boxes. Mel once beat some fuck's skull in with a candlestick to prove it could be done, and 'cause Cap kicked his ass in a shooting competition he'd had to do it dressed as Mrs. Peacock in a skirt two sizes too small. They'd all collectively lost their shit at the sight of a hulking, semi-psychotic blacksmith with bloodstains on his incredibly feminine apparel, dragging a corpse behind him to a dumpster.

They were still human back then. Yeah, they fucked up, and a lot at that, but they were still human. They still cared about each other, had each other's backs, watched the same movies with each other _ad nauseam._ Bushy's not a human, not anymore. Not when she pulled her knife from Light's back and licked it clean, betraying the first rule of the bush - _you don't leave a brother behind._ Not when she lied through her teeth so convincingly in front of the judge that even her own lawyer, who came up with the defense, believed it.

She had the chance to die, to rid the world of the plague she was. She didn't take it. Left parents without children and children without parents, destroyed so much shit it's a wonder she hadn't been caught before. How can she even call herself a human if all she does is hurt people?

It's like a switch in her head just forced itself back on again after the longest time off. For years now, she'd trained herself not to feel a thing, to barely flinch at gunshots, blood, and death and only realize what she'd done at night, alone, with the terrors tearing into her. It was the only way she could survive, after all. Guilt is the heaviest weight - that's what Light always said, whispering words into her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder, apologizing over and over again for fucking it up, for making it all end like this. He tastes like nicotine and regret, tying them both down and spiraling out of control. Because as much as he loved her, maybe, he couldn't do it for her. When he did it for himself, smoke tainted the air, crimson stains criss-crossing his whole body as he stumbles home, pulling a prostitute's defiled corpse out of the truck by its hair, saying he's loyal and it was self-defense even though they both know he's not and he just wanted to kill again. But she bites her tongue, plays along - maybe his heart lies somewhere else than his loins, maybe there's still a spark hiding under his grief. Besides, at least it's not her.

And she claims to be better than that.

She claims to be better than that. She's a fucking liar is what she is. Bushy hitched a ride up to the top and she's abusing the fact that someone cares about her (for whatever reason). At least Light hit the pinnacle himself.

_ Subhuman. Eight seventy-two. _

She's not better than him, not at all. She's _worse._ And if Cessa doesn't like him... then what the _fuck_ does she see in Bushy?

The criminal pulls her knees up to her chest, arms tight around them. Queen's lying, isn't she? There's no way, _no way,_ someone like her falls for someone like Bushranger. She supposes this is what she deserves for blindly believing the obvious falsehood, but she deserves so much worse. She deserves nothing more than death.

_ "Nobody's going to miss you, Rain." _

He's right, isn't he? He always is.

"Fucking - you're a _cheater!"_

That's not Light's voice, not his inflection. Bushy opens her eyes, but it's a blur through the slot in her helmet. She closes them again, falling back into the familiar darkness.

"You're a cheater, Puppet! You're such a cheater - you know what, I'm even gonna text the groupchat. _Puppet is a cheater._ Send."

"You're just mad that I'm better than you," Puppet defends.

"You're throwing your paper half a second after I throw my rock!" Oh, that's Frillneck.

"No, I'm not!"

Bushy's phone buzzes - she can't move her arm enough to grab it, so she settles on pulling herself further into a little brown ball of pain, chewing her lip to try to ground herself. Blood spills onto her tongue, and she deserves it and so much more.

"Prove it then. High stakes, best of seven, in the dressing room. Queen, you can referee?" Frill's tone is snappy, impatient.

A pause. "I, uh, do you _need_ me?" She's hesitant, from the slight push on the requirement.

"Yeah, we _need_ you," he replies, drawing out the verb. "C'mon."

The couch creaks slightly as one, two, three people pull themselves off. Footsteps recede into the distance. She's alone.

One part of her is terrified; the other is thankful. Who knows what she'll do to them? She's volatile, doesn't have her head screwed on. But who knows what she'll do to herself if she's alone?

Bushy realizes she can move her arm again and fumbles for the phone in her coat pocket. It hits the floor and she curses, leaning over to grab it and unlock it after the third try.

_ "You don't deserve it, you know. Any of it." _

She swipes down, finding the notification.

_ Leliyn, today at 20:34 _

_ the key to the janitors closet is under my cushion _

_ if you need the space _

The criminal turns off her screen with a slight shaky smile, staring at her helmet's reflection in the glass for a long second.

_ "You were so much prettier when you were mine. Now you're not, and look what you've become." _

A monster. She doesn't even have to finish Light's words for him - if she looks real close, she can see the outlines of the identifying scars, still recovering after the episode a few days back. She moves as if on autopilot to find the key, then stands up awkwardly; she notices she's dragged herself to the cleaning supplies closet, opening it up and almost falling inside before she whirls around to close the door.

It's dark. Cozy. The walls jut in, almost like a discount iron maiden. There's a snug little alcove Bushy finds for herself as she moves a mop to the opposite wall, sinking down and looking wordlessly up to the black ceiling.

It's honestly sort of calming, just to be completely alone again. Nobody expects anything from her back here. Nobody's watching. She's absolutely free.

There's a coil of rope on the floor. Bushranger picks it up, gauging its length through her gloved hands. She wonders, then - what if she'd said no? If she'd checked in for the death penalty. How would they have killed her? What would they say when they realized that the most feared criminal in Australia already slipped out of the hands of the court?

Before she notices it, she's fashioned a noose and is looking down at it idly, the shadows marking its outline. How does she know how to make one? She's never had to. No matter. She slides the loop end onto her wrist, tightens it. Wonders how it would feel on her neck.

Tries not to.

Bushy loosens the loop, taking it off, and looks at it one last time before calmly, too calmly, placing it on one of the shelves. She's here. She's still here, still alive. She's not about to waste that - not when there are cunts out there that also don't deserve life.

Deep breath. Grounded. Bushranger bites her lip again, focuses on the coppery taste as she pulls herself up, hyperaware of her surroundings. Her fingers run along the edges of the shelves, pressing down to remind herself that _she's still here._ It's okay.

It's okay, maybe, and if it's not? Well, she better get used to it.

Cessa's words filter back into her mind. _Breathe in, then out. You're doing great._ Bushy nods to herself, tightening her grip on the shelves; she braces for an invisible impact, pushing them against their respective walls.

_ Don't show weakness. That's like asking to get your brains blown out. _

She's gotta get back out there, doesn't she? Fuck. That shitty group song.

Breathe. Nobody cares.

For some reason, that makes her feel a little bit better - knowing that just about zero fucks were being given. She sighs, dipping into her pocket.

_ Musetta, today at 20:36 _

_ When you're feeling better, can you text me? _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:42 _

_ little bit _

_ I guess _

_ why? _

_ Musetta, today at 20:43 _

_ Frillneck and Puppet are still arguing about their game. Also, Osher's looking for you, which leads me to assume you're not in the lounge. _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:44 _

_ damn right I'm not _

_ went out to the car for a few _

_ is it urgent? _

_ Musetta, today at 20:44 _

_ Well, considering we're behind schedule, yes. _

_ But if you're still not up for the group song, I understand. _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:45 _

_ let's just get it over with _

_ Musetta, today at 20:45 _

_ Promise you'll tell me what's going on later? _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:45 _

_ yeah, I will _

_ Musetta, today at 20:45 _

_ <3 _

_ Storm Warning, today at 20:46 _

_...<3 _

Bushranger pops open the door just an inch; making sure nobody's around, she slips out, locking the door and heading to her seat. She looks back down at her phone, feeling how she's smiling like an idiot.

_ "You don't deserve her." _

She turns off her phone screen, sliding the device into her pocket. "But she's mine," Bushy mumbles, adjusting her helmet slightly.

Speak of the devil. The other three contestants appear from the hallway; she isn't blind to the obvious relief in Cessa's expression as the royal waves her over to the stage door, from where Usher has just popped out and is now watching them all, incredibly annoyed.

"Is everyone _finally_ ready?" Four affirmative gestures. "Let's get this show on the road. We don't have time for the practice runs, so I'll just cross my fingers that nobody cracks their head open."

_This City_ is a fun enough song, Bushranger supposes. The choreography was designed for the legless, with little more than a synchronized spin or two of note, but maybe that's to try to keep the vocals pure? She's not the type of person to know. In either case, the most memorable things are as follows:

\- Frilly's frills apparently light up in the dark; this lends credence to the theory that he once swallowed a garland of Christmas lights.

\- Puppet is a lot taller than her and she expects to hear more about this later.

\- She spots Queen adding an extra twirl in and is exceedingly grateful that Puppet gets the next solo afterwards.

\- She makes sure to slide just in front of her, even if the choreo notes say to stay behind, because why not and also she sort of wants to see Cessa's reaction.

\- They end the song next to each other, Bushy flicking out her coat, and, before realizing it, she immediately looks over to see how her girlfriend (maybe, she keeps attaching strings to the word) is doing before correcting the error and hoping nobody catches on.

All in all, it could've gone a lot worse.

Puppet's eliminated, just as she knows, and Usher lets the final three head back to the lounge, but not before telling them of a few surprises that'd be explained in the e-mails over the week. Frillneck separates from the duo soon after as he excuses himself by explaining that he was invited over for dinner at a "friend's" house; he doesn't deny that it's Wizard, instead getting out the door even faster to avoid any more questioning. So that left Bushy with Cessa, who'd proposed to head home in that slightly quieter and meeker tone that spoke volumes about her mood.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Queen asks, checking to make sure her seatbelt's tightened and sighing in disapproval as she verifies that Bushranger's forgotten. Said criminal pulls out of the parking lot, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.

"I guess we should. I mean... I dunno. Not like it changes anything."

"Bushy..." A pause - she takes a slow breath. "It's fine if you don't want to talk to me about it, but something's up. Denying it isn't going to help you with it."

She shrugs to that. "You've just got... So much on your plate, and now you have to deal with me being a convulsing _wuss_ on top of it. I don't get it." She exhales, tipping her head down. "Why?"

"Why..?" Queen echoes the question, an eyebrow raised.

"You can have any girl in the world, any one you _want,_ and you want _me._ That's what I don't get. You could just as easily be fucking one of your maids or something, make it somewhat less scandalous. Get married to some gay prince from South Korea for the alliance, stick to lavender and it'd all be okay. But - goddammit, Cessa." Bushranger groans, hitting her helmet on the steering wheel before jerking back up to stay alert. "Me. Of all people, you had to decide on the one who's _most_ likely to blow up not only your castle but also the headlines. The crazy one, the _worst possible excuse of a human -"_

"Don't say that." Bushy pauses, not expecting the interruption, and Queen takes it as her cue to continue. "You did some bad things, yeah."

"A _lot_ of bad things," the criminal corrects, gripping the wheel tighter. "Like blowing up a whole apartment building in the middle of the night to eliminate one person who knew who I was."

Her passenger doesn't reply to that for a long time; they steep in the silence like oversaturated tea bags. "You're not a bad person, Bushy, as loath as you are to admit it."

The driver snorts at that. "Sure I'm not, Queenie."

"I mean it." Another sigh. "You know... I wasn't being entirely honest. About why I offered you the deal."

"Huh?"

"I... I honestly don't know why I did it." She pauses yet again. "I guess I just saw you there, and you... You gave up, didn't you?"

Bushranger freezes - she remembers to hit the brake at the light a second late and they screech to a hard stop. "What?"

"You gave up," Cessa repeats, matter-of-factly. "You wouldn't have gotten caught if you didn't want it. I'm pretty sure you could have broken the handcuffs within a minute."

"I wish," she deflects. Queen's right, though, and that's honestly kind of terrifying.

"Don't lie to me," the monarch hums, but her tone's not accusatory, merely - _dejected._ It's even worse.

"I..." Now it's Bushy's turn to lose her words. She pulls a hard left, avoiding the exit towards the castle; if Cessa notices (which she probably has), she doesn't mention it. The outlaw looks up to the sky, closing her eyes for just a second before opening them again. "I sometimes wish I was never born."

Where the _fuck_ did _that_ come from?

"I get that." Bushranger almost snaps her neck with how fast she turns to look at her - _girlfriend,_ get used to the word while you have it. "Hey, a silly question, okay? If you could go back and change something..."

"I dunno," she admits, then thinks it over. "Probably the first robbery. Where I met him. I should've let him shoot me dead there. At least - "

"And what would that have changed?" Queen raises an eyebrow. "You know Light and Mel and Cap would still have banded together, found someone else to fill your role. Besides, you kept them in check. Prevented even _more_ death."

"Doesn't fuckin' feel like it," she mumbles.

"I know."

They drive on for a few minutes. The silence twists and winds around Bushranger's helmet, seeping in to almost choke her. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you care? Why do you - " The words trip on her tongue, but she forces them out. "Love me?"

Queen laughs at that, morose, melancholy. She returns to looking out the window at the bushes growing on the side of the road. "Do you want me to be honest?"

Bushy furrows her brow under her helmet. "No, lie to me," she grates sarcastically.

"I don't know. I can't give you a reason. It's not geography - I can't point on a map and tell you that's where Zanzibar is." She toys with one of her black satin gloves, pulling it off and putting it back on.

"Way to flex a college education," she rolls her eyes.

"I don't get _one_ poignant moment, do I?" Cessa chuckles, and _damn_ if it isn't the best thing she's heard all week. "You just... project this kind of _energy._ Dare I say it - _fear._ And you're going to deny it all, and that's fine, but... You don't _want_ any of this, do you?"

Bushranger hums noncommittally. "Any of what?"

"The death, the suffering, the adrenaline. You don't want money, or fame, or even the crown. If you did - if you _do_ \- crash the car and kill me. You'll escape. I know you will." She shrugs. "But I know you. The _real_ you, the one you try to hide since you think it makes you look less like who you think you are. The real Bushy doesn't want me to die, or anyone else, either. She only does what she has to to get by because she doesn't feel like she has a choice. She's in over her head. She's told herself that she's never going to be saved, so what does any of it matter?

"There's this one website you might not have heard of. It's called Reddit, and people go there to talk about things in specialized groups called subreddits. Did you know that you have your own subreddit?"

"Me?" Bushranger drums her fingers on the wheel again. "So everyone who signs up gets one?"

"It doesn't work that way. Since you're sort of a hot topic, someone created a subreddit about you, and people join and post in it. I don't know if you'd like it or not, but the point stands. I recently went through the Reddit, just to see what people were saying. I, uh... I want you to listen to this clip." Cessa pulls her phone out, unlocking it and scrolling through. At the first sound, Bushy abruptly pulls over.

_ "- my God. Okay. Kid, I'm not - I'm not gonna hurt you. The fuck happened?" _

_ "I - there's this man, this strange man, he's following me - a-and he wants me to - " _

_ "Oh, uh, good day there. I see you found my cousin?" _

_ "He's not my - " _

_ "She's only saying that because - " _

_ "Turn around, kid... I said, turn the fuck around." _

Bang. A masculine scream. Crying.

_ "I told you to - oh my God, kid, knock it off... Let's see what he did to ya... Fucker had a knife? Motherfucker." _

A few footsteps more. Rustling.

_ "Alright, kid, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna set some pressure on that for a minute or two. Then I need you to hold down the pressure while I call the cops. I can't stick around for them, though, so you're gonna have to tell them what happened... Fuck, they're gonna know shit's up. Whatever. Tell them the truth, I guess. You won't be hiding anything then." _

More sniffling. A quiet moan of pain.

_ "You're doing great, kid. Good job... They're not gonna believe you, are they? Fuck. Uh... This thing's got a wooden handle. Nice. I'll make you a little souvenir, I guess. Or at least some sort of thing that lets you know it's me. They won't believe it, but... Can't do anything else. Ah, kid? Tell them you want it back. If you do, of course; if not - " _

_ "I - think I do. Is he - going to be okay?" _

_ "Why do you care? He was trying to kill you. He's a bad person. Caring about bad people's a good way to get your heart broken." _

_ "Are you going to - be okay?" _

_ "I just told you, kid. You shouldn't give a fuck about bad people." _

_ "You're not - a bad person... You helped me..." _

_ "Sometimes shitty people do good things." _

A sigh.

_ "You okay to hold that? I'll call the cops now." _

Footsteps, then a payphone ringing.

_ "Emergency services? Dixon and Hay, by the Mini Hot Pot. Medical and police. One stabbed, one shot... Four minutes. Thank you." _

The phone hangs up. More footsteps.

_ "I gotta run, kid. They'll be here soon. You're doing great, okay?" _

_ "Thank you..." _

_ "Don't." _

The car falls back into silence again. Cessa turns her phone off, placing it in the door's armrest - she's waiting for Bushranger to speak.

"What was I supposed to do?" the criminal settles on.

"You didn't have to help her. You could have let her die. You didn't have to help Wolf, either. You didn't have to help me at all. You didn't have to say anything; you could have watched me _die_ and it would have benefited you more. Even now, you're still taking care of it all, because - because you _care._ About _me."_

"You're trying to make a point with this, aren't you."

The monarch nods as Bushranger pulls back onto the road. "The point is, you keep telling yourself you're a terrible person. I guess it's a coping mechanism, something to get your mind off the reality of it all. But Bushy... You're not all bad. You messed up, yeah, and a lot at that, but..."

Queen sighs, looking down at her lap. "Call me crazy, but I want to give you the second chance you never had."

"Huh?" She's still confused at her... _passenger's_ remarks.

"If you win the show - "

_Oh._ Bushranger laughs, cutting her off before she finishes her thought. "The show doesn't mean shit to me."

_"If you win the show,"_ Cessa repeats with that tone that makes sure the driver shuts up, "You can start over. Despite what you say, you really do have a beautiful voice. I'd take care of the paperwork. You could go on tour or something, release some covers or even your own music, if you're good at that..."

Bushy runs her tongue over the puffy, chewed-at wounds on her lip. On one hand, the offer's incredibly enticing. Take the money and run while you're still able to. But then she sees bathroom tiles in front of her, a tiara thrown into a wall with reckless abandon. Queen's put so much work into this - blood, sweat and tears upon tears. And she wants to give it all up for _her?_ Some idiot whose best way to deal with issues is blowing holes through them?

"You're not throwing the competition. You go out there and screw up and I'll rig the vote so you _still_ win."

"Bushy, I - "

"Want to give up on proving that I'm amazing at singing as well as everything else so some dumbass in a metal suit can try to be human again." The criminal crosses her arms, raising her eyebrows under her helmet. "I heard you loud and clear. Cessa, I didn't stick around to watch you get second place. That wasn't ever in the plan."

"Plans change." The royal looks back at her. Bushranger catches her gaze and immediately turns to watch the road. God, she's _so_ fucking beautiful. Why would someone like her -

She swallows the warm, fuzzy butterflies brandishing chainsaws in her throat and sighs. "Cessa, come on."

"Won't you be happier?" A sad glance down to the hem of her skirt that she's toying with. "You're not going to be targeted anymore. You'll be able to just live your life. Like you wanted. Alone." The way her voice tears slightly at the last word tells a truth she's not ready to say yet. _It's not meant to be. Shouldn't we just let this go now, before they find out?_

"I don't want to be alone, though." She coaxes the Queenmobile onto an exit, looping around. "I - You're unironically - one of the best things that's ever happened to me. And that sounds fucking stupid and sappy, but it's true. I..." The words catch on her tongue, as they always do, but this time she pries them off, forces them out. "I fucking _love_ you, okay? And I - I know you want this win so damn bad, and I'm standing in the way of that, and - "

A hand on her own, still clutching the steering wheel. Bushranger stops midsentence, letting her breath flutter out in a shaky sigh.

"I might want it, but not as much as you need it." Queen pauses, tapping her fingers on her girlfriend's. "They've seen what I can do. But for you to win - that could really help you out, Bushy. You know that." Her brow furrows at that. The criminal spots it; it sends a pang of worry back into her chest.

"I don't - " She bites her tongue; she knows the meanings interlaced between the words. "You - you don't think this... this will work." It's a statement, not a question. She _knows,_ even if Cessa denies it.

"...Take a look at us." She smiles sadly, looking out the window again as Bushy coasts to a stop. They've ended up in a forest, off the beaten path. Nobody's around. Good.

_The perfect place to hide a body,_ Light whispers in her ear.

"Yeah?" The criminal hops out of the car, walking around the front to the passenger side as she unlatches her helmet's safety hook and flips it up, locking it into place there. She pops the passenger door open, raising an eyebrow silently.

Cessa exhales, sitting there - she grasps for the words to say for a minute. "You're - you're _you,_ and I'm _me,_ and you're _right,_ you're right that I should have just married some prince and been done with it, but - but I never _liked_ the princes, not the way I did the princesses, and - and it's something wrong with me, isn't it? I'm the - I'm the _Queen of Australia,_ and - and - "

"Come here." Bushy offers her best attempt at a consoling smile, spreading her arms, as her girlfriend fidgets with her seatbelt for a good thirty seconds before finally getting it off and all but collapsing on top of her. She wraps her arms around the taller, leaner figure tightly.

"I - you, me - we can't - they'll _talk_ about it, they already _are_ talking about it - "

"Queenie... Why do you care?"

"Because," she mumbles into the fabric of Bushy's coat, "They're watching us anyway. They're not going to stop..."

"So why does it matter what some cunt thinks? If they had their way, I'd be a fucking chandelier in the Sydney Opera House."

Cessa chuckles sadly, gripping onto her lover just that little bit tighter, and Bushranger falls head over heels all over again. The trees arch over them, a protection from the outside and their prying eyes. She knows, then - she's meant to protect Queen at all costs. And if it made her happy, suited her mood, Bushy would pull the trigger on her own temple with a smile.

"Cessa?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we play fair? It's obvious that we're just gonna stab ourselves in the backs. Next week, you do your best and I do mine, and we'll see who comes out on top?"

"...I suppose that works, if you insist."

"I just wanna give the title to someone who deserves it."

"You deserve it too, Bushy."

Silence, except for the soft rustling of the trees and the slow breathing of the girl in her arms. And if this isn't perfection, she has no idea what is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I don't know why Bushy went 2 for 2 in the high mental distress chapters either. But here, have this -


	8. Capot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the finale!

"Did you get the e-mail?"

Bushranger glances up from her laptop, raising her eyebrows. Judging by the way Queen just skidded to a stop in the doorway, this was important. "What e-mail?"

"Press conference?"

_Fuck._ "Uh, one sec. What's it say?" She opens Outlook as the royal closes the door behind herself.

"They're going to have a press conference with the finalists," Cessa informs - then, a shadow flickers over her face as her eyes drop to gaze at the floor. "...They're going to be asking questions..."

"Right." Bushy flips her visor up, locking it into place as she scans the e-mail. "Okay. Alright." She doesn't need Queen to explain that they'd likely be asking about, well, _them._

"If they find out..." She trails off.

"Do you want them to?" The criminal pulls herself into a sitting position, patting a spot next to her for her girlfriend.

The monarch flops down, now watching the ceiling as if it were going to suddenly come to life and strangle her. "If they do... What happens?"

Bushranger opens her mouth to say something - finds the words tied back down on her tongue. "...I dunno, Cessa."

"They're not going to be okay with it... Will they call for my abdication? Are they going to storm the castle, revolt - "

"Queenie."

_"What?"_ She draws out the vowel with a sigh, glancing back down to her lap.

"They can't _make_ you do anything. They can bitch and whine about it, but they can't make you do shit. And if any cunt wants to fuck with you, they'll have to get through me first." Bushy taps her fingers on the keyboard, watching Queen fidget in her peripherals. "If you wanna keep it a secret, though, I get that. Doesn't mean they'll stop talking about it." She chuckles. "You know, the gay community of Twitter seems remarkably okay with it all."

"Huh?" Cessa, rubbing an eye, leans onto her girlfriend's shoulder as she pulls up a new tab.

"Yep," she nods, entering the web address. "Take a look."

They scroll through the feed for a few minutes in silence - Bushy keeps note of how the royal's expression changes from incredibly vulnerable and scared to quietly almost content. The occasional art is honestly adorable, she'll admit it.

"I don't think we should tell them, though."

"That's okay." Bushranger finds herself reaching for Queen's right shoulder, keeping her secure in the half-hug. "So you want Frills between us at the conference?"

"I don't know," she sighs. "It'd look weird for the second-placer to be in the middle, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess. Especially when the winner is the Queen." Satisfied that she's turned the self-deprecation on its head, the criminal fishes in her pocket for her phone. "We can call him maybe? See what he thinks. He's good at this type of thing." At Cessa's ambivalent shrug, she dials the number.

One ring. Two. She puts the call on speaker.

"Bushy? Everything okay? Is - "

"Shit's fine," she cuts Frillneck off before he can finish the statement. "Well, mostly. Heard about the conference?"

"The what?" The confusion is evident in his tone; of course he hadn't read the e-mail.

"The press conference," Queen now speaks up. "They want to interview all of us after the finale..."

A pause from the other end. "Oh."

"Yeah," Bushranger exhales. "One table, two morons and a monarch." She catches the glare she receives from her lover and grins in reply. "Thing is, we're pretty sure we want to keep... well, everything under wraps."

"Okay, so you want me in the middle? Or - oh, I've got a better idea!" They can almost hear the man's frills flipping up in contemplation. "Hear me out, okay? What if we invite Wizard - "

"Because you wanna fuck after your performance?" The criminal savors the offended noises coming from the receiver.

"What? No! Well, not - oh my God - what I _meant_ was, if we invite Wiz as a plus one, we can split the table left and right. Me, then you, Bushy, then Queen, and Wiz on the other end. That would look extremely straight."

"He's got a point..." Cessa mumbles. "Would Wizard be okay with it, though?"

"Yeah," Frilly replies. "If it's to help you guys out, I'm sure he'll understand."

"If not, you can always promise him free - "

_"Bushy!"_ A playful swat at her knee - Bushranger bursts into laughter. "Forgive her; she's just being an idiot again."

_"Your_ idiot, though."

"...My idiot, though," Queen admits - and they're standing at the lighthouse again, and if she'd known, back then, she'd have taken an extra week of euphoria from the doubt that had plagued her mind, staked her claim a little earlier with the ebbing of the waves.

Frillneck laughs. "Alright, alright. I'll let Wiz and Osher know. You two can get back to whatever it is you were up to."

"See you soon." Bushy hits end call with a slight smile, looking up to catch Cessa's gaze. "Told ya so."

"Think they'll believe it?"

"If you say it convincingly enough," she hums, feeling her heart flutter in her chest as Queen snuggles into her side, closing her eyes.

"I still love you, though."

She almost pinches herself again before she reminds herself that this dream is better than whatever real life would have to offer, anyway. "I know, Cessa. I love you too."

The contented noise her girlfriend makes as Bushranger gets back to work floors her internally. Who the fuck put so much adorable into one person? And how the hell did that person decide on her, of all people?

She doesn't know, but she's incredibly grateful for it.

"Ready?" Bushy crosses her arms, leaning back on the door of the dressing room.

"Almost..."

She sighs good-naturedly. "Cessa, you've been in there for the past fifteen minutes saying you're almost ready. Mind if I come in?"

No response. Bushranger tries to remember what to do in this situation; finding she can't recall, she settles on testing the doorknob. It's unlocked; she nonchalantly pops the door open, eyebrows raised numbly at the scene - then, they furrow in concern as Bushy steps inside, slamming the door shut. "Cessa?"

Queen whirls around, spotting her in the mirror. She loses her grip, the Sharpie she's holding falling to the ground, and she reaches for it, but Bushy's faster and she snatches the pen, spinning it between her fingers as she assesses the damage.

There are splotches of dark ink decorating exposed skin, seeming so fragile and light in contrast. The lines are drawn thick, almost thick enough to obscure the red inflammation that comes with the pressure. Circles, looping desperately around thighs, stomach, upper arms.

She steps closer, glancing down to the Sharpie in her hand. Cessa avoids her gaze as she looks back up - it's not something she's proud of, evidently.

Before Bushy knows it, she's pressing the tip of the marker just above the upper seam of her girlfriend's bra. She traces a small heart shape onto the monarch's skin, then extends a hand wordlessly for the cap, which she gets and promptly uses to close the pen. "There," she mumbles.

Queen looks down at the drawing with a soft sigh. "...Sorry," she offers. "I know I - "

"It's okay, darlin'. It takes time. And you're doing great."

She nods silently, letting the conversation fizzle out. Bushranger slips behind her, humming as she helps the royal into her outfit for today. They decide to keep the wide skirt and the gold curtain thing in the backseat, so they'll have to deal with them later. Not a problem.

As they fall back into their usual positions in the car, Cessa presses a hand to her chest, hovering just above where the heart was drawn. They don't talk about it.

That's okay, though. If she wants to talk, Bushy's here to listen; if she just wants her to be here, she'll be here. She doesn't mind the silence.

There are a lot more cars than there should be at the parking lot today. The driver sighs, unable to play her normal game, and finds a spot mercifully close to the door to the studio, sliding in with all the grace of Mario Andretti who just realized brownies are burning in his oven. In her defense, there are three vans entering the lot and she _doesn't_ need that shit right now.

Queen evidently spots them too with how she folds in on herself, desperate to avoid being spotted, to avoid attention. Bushranger similarly slips under the bottom lip of the window, even if it's tinted almost black.

They wait.

"Looks clear," the criminal flashes a thumbs-up, peering over the lip for what feels like the fiftieth time. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah," her passenger nods. "I, uh - they sure let them come early."

"Seems it," Bushy sighs. "They'll probably be corralled into a different area, though. We should be safe." She opens her door cautiously, scoping the place out again before hopping out and swooping to the passenger side. Cessa looks over her shoulder as her girlfriend snaps the wide skirt into place, scurrying to the studio door before anyone else comes around. Bushy, sharing the sentiment, gathers the gold-and-black curtain from the back, draping it over her arms to carry it inside. Before she can get the door, it's opened by Dragonfly.

It's opened by _Dragonfly?_

"We're still waiting for Sloth to show up," the group A eliminee explains, explaining nothing at all as she sidesteps to allow the duo in.

Bushranger opens her mouth to ask what the _fuck_ was up - then, she spots the general disarray in the contestants' lounge and decides it's better not to. She notices an annoyingly orange cunt interspersed with the others - _well, of course she'd come if everyone's here_ \- and finds herself gritting her teeth in disdain as she follows Queen inside.

"Oh!" Cunt of the day waves to them. "Can I, uh - "

"Shut the fuck up," Bushy grates under her breath, even as the Goldfish approaches.

"I just wanted to say - " orange bitch begins before getting cut off again.

"Queen! Come over, I need to show you something." That's Frillneck's voice, whisking the taller away and leaving the criminal with the cunt who should be dead.

Fishface starts to say something, but Bushranger's faster to the punch. "Hallway." She strides off, letting Goldfish follow her. Once they round a bend, she wastes no time in latching onto the cunt's shoulder, shoving her back into the wall. "Fuck with her today and you're _blood in the water,_ got it?"

"Wha - I - wanted to apologize?" _Huh?_ Bushy takes a cautious half-step back as Goldfish rubs her shoulder like the weak-ass daffodil she is. "I, uh - I get, well, _too_ competitive, and I - said some things I don't think I should have, and - "

"Unlike me," she states in a flat tone, "Cessa's not gonna kill you 'cause you're a bitch. She's probably forgiven you already, so can it."

She doesn't care to hear the orange cunt's stammering to reply to that, instead whirling around and heading back to the lounge, where everyone's chatting, destroying things, or both. Bushranger finds her favorite couch corner remarkably empty and stakes her claim, trying to zone out all the shit around her.

Soon enough, Sloth arrives, completing the full roster of idiots on parade. Usher lines them all up and explains the last group song, which Bushy is almost certain will end up sounding like hot shit - so that's what was in the e-mail. Whatever. Not her solo, doesn't matter. This group song, too, runs under the "Don't crack your skulls open" principle, probably to add some extra time onto the show.

Everyone gets a verse. The eliminated singers, who struggle to coordinate moving together in a line, sing more than the finalists do, probably as some sort of recap. She, Cessa, and Frills join the shiny happy trainwreck at its tail end, finishing it out at least sort of strong. The judges cheer and whistle, as they always do, and everyone scampers off the stage except for Frillneck, who's first of the night.

As they all get back to the lounge, Bushranger finds herself instinctively looking for Queen. She's nowhere to be spotted, though, and the criminal resorts to an annoyed hum as she steals her corner seat from under Puppet's nose. The wooden man pretends to pout, "forced" to sit on the back of the couch instead, as everyone crams on to crowd the television screen.

The performance gets going with Frillneck's demonic laugh, and Bushy reminds herself once again that she's going to lose. She doesn't have what it takes to be here. She doesn't have Frilly's limitless energy or Cessa's powerhouse vocal ability. What she _has_ is a name and what she supposes is a cool helmet. That's about it, though.

Good enough for third place.

She closes her eyes, listening to the song - it's oddly familiar, but also different. But that's what a cover is, though. Thinking too deep into it just confuses her, so she doesn't. Besides, it's sort of hard to figure things out when Frillneck's literally growling from the sound system.

The song ends, straight on the beat with a high kick, and Bushranger busies herself with scrolling aimlessly through social media. She should be looking at the votes, making sure everything's okay and set up for Queen to take the trophy - but she _promised_ not to touch it. In the bush, you don't break promises. Especially not to people you love.

Even if Light broke his all the time.

Someone shakes her shoulder - Bushy looks up to Frillneck's smiling face as his frills finally fold back down. "She's up."

"She is?" For some reason, that's news, though it really shouldn't be. As Frilly takes a seat next to Wizard, she glances to the screen, where Cessa's getting ready for her final song.

So _that's_ what the curtain was. It looks a lot like the dress she was wearing at the beach, just - _bigger._ Damn thing takes up the whole stage.

_ "At first I was afraid, I was petrified, kept thinkin' I could never live without you by my side... But then I spent so many nights thinkin' how you did me wrong - and I grew strong, and I learned how to get along..." _

God, she's beautiful. It's honestly stupid, just how often Bushranger feels her world stop, then restart, whenever Queen - well, _exists,_ really. She'd call it easy-come easy-go teenager romance, but it's not. The stakes are too high to play kiss-and-tell; she's tired of hiding bodies after one-night stands. Besides, she's -

The criminal squints at the screen to make sure she's seeing things correctly. So not only did they put her in the crazy skirt, they also made it floaty? Whoever decided that needs to go - if whatever cables are holding her up snap and something happens, Bushy is _going_ to set this dump ablaze. No ifs, ands, or buts.

She almost reaches to flip her visor up so the high notes don't ring through her helmet, then remembers, forcing her hand back down. They're not alone. Right. She wishes they were. This performance always made Cessa a little bit emotional during practice; she'd confessed that she chose it because of how the lyrics struck a chord with her. She's keeping a remarkable poker face though, not letting it get through to her as she ends the song with that _killer_ high note hold. The cables let her go slowly as she descends to the ground.

That means - fuck, she's next. Last. Same difference.

She passes Queen in the hallway, leaning in to tousle the returning contestant's hair and catching the resigned smile she's given before she has to get on stage. Changing to her set is relatively easy, with the fans taking only a minute or two to prepare. Starting position.

Bushranger's heart is pounding with adrenaline - why? It's not like she cares.

Oh God, she _does_ care, doesn't she? Her blood burns - she _wants_ this. A victory, all her own. The opening notes sound. Stay calm, cool, collected.

_ "It's complicated, it always is - that’s just the way it goes... feels like I've waited so long for this, I wonder if it shows..." _

Every word. Every step. Every flick of the wrist, change in position. This is a call to arms, and she _will_ deliver it.

They'll talk about it, read too far into the details, shoot hashtags into the stratosphere about scandals and love and _what happens if we're right?_ Let them. Bushy has lived her whole life in mystery - she's fine to skulk in the shadows, an invisible menace, listening in to their scared whispers and theories. It doesn't affect her, not at all.

Cessa would say she's lying. She knows, deep down, she's lying. But it's better to wear the veneer of transcendence, smile so hard it turns real, than it is to cry and rust up her helmet. And if she's meant to be strong, then she _will_ be strong.

Bushranger grins under her helmet, raising a fist as she ends the song. She's won already, hasn't she? It doesn't matter what some cunts with clipboards think. She's very much still alive, which should be a victory in and of itself, but she's also... more than that. People actually _care_ about her now, and about _her,_ not just the blood she bathes in.

The distortion, as if on cue, seizes into Bushy's mind again, tinting her vision a fiery red. She takes a shaky breath as the judges talk, letting it go slowly. _In... then out. In... then out._ She's only semi-aware that Usher announces the results being in, bringing the other two finalists on stage. Fuck, she should have been checking her phone...

Third place... is Frillneck. Huh. She could have sworn he'd get second. He seems a great sport about it all, laughing as he explains how grateful he is for the opportunity to compete, especially against two incredibly strong women, in the finale. Or whatever bullshit he's on about. So that leaves her and Cessa. Oh, it's her and Cessa - it always has been.

"And the winner of the second season of The Masked Singer is..." A pause - Hostman fishes for his cue card. "Bushranger!"

_What?_ Queen nods, glancing over to the shorter criminal as she offers a melancholy smile. "You deserve it," she states quietly.

Bushy really doesn't deserve shit, but... if Cessa's saying it, she supposes it might as well be true. The royal, too, makes a little speech about how much fun she had during the show and how she wants to let the world see a different side of her, then also disappears backstage, leaving the winner there alone. How the fuck did that happen, actually?

"A fan favorite from the start," Hostman comments, "And the Season 2 winner - the Knight of Death - Bushranger!"

_That_ epithet. Really? She crosses her arms, taking three long strides to snatch the trophy unceremoniously from Usher's hands. He looks at her like she's a ghost as she whirls to face the judges. "Get used to it," she mutters, cracking a grin under her helmet. "You think this thing can beat someone's skull in?"

"Well - "

Bushy cuts Hostman off, lifting the trophy up to test its weight. "It'll work. Anyway. I'm s'posed to talk about how I'm so happy I'm here or?" Nobody responds - probably better, really. "Yeah, uh... I won. So fuck you all."

That'll be a field day for the censors, given she's on live TV. She can _hear_ the producers crying in the backrooms as she flips the biggest camera off, sauntering away to the contestants' lounge. Usher doesn't follow her, either knowing he'd get insulted to hell and back or just understanding that it's how Bushranger rolls. As she kicks the door open, she raises the trophy again, and the eleven other contestants cheer. They're happy. For _her._ "...This is _real?"_ she finds herself questioning.

"Yeah, it is," Queen hums, gathering the crazily long skirt in her gloved hands as she stands, the golden fabric shining against the black. They look at each other for a moment - maybe not right now, not when people _could_ be watching.

Wizard steps over, extending his own hand to help the royal - she takes it, tentative. "It's time for the event, isn't it?" he asks.

Frillneck offers a thumbs-up, already leaning onto Bushranger's shoulders in a way he _must_ know is _incredibly_ annoying. When the criminal sighs loudly in his general direction, he thankfully stops. "Yep!" He pops the p. "We ready?" At three nods, he crosses over to glance at the television screen, where a table's been set up on stage and a bunch of piranhas - sorry, news reporters - are sitting where the audience should be. "They seem to be, so let's get this show on the road."

"Best of luck!" Kitten smiles, padding over to high-five all four of the imminent interviewees as they depart, first down the hallway and then onto the stage. From left to right (their right to left), Frills, her, Cessa, Wiz. Seats taken, microphones tested. Bushy slams the trophy down on the table next to her, admiring the way the room reflects in it. If she glances at just the right angle, she can see Queen's smile in the golden metal.

She won't admit how much time she spends watching it.

The questions begin, and they field them pretty well, in her opinion. Wizard talks about how he'd signed up with Kitten and Puppet, laughing as he explains that they've been friends for a long time prior and decided to see who could get in. Frillneck leans back in his seat, wondering out loud how crazy this season was and mentioning that he didn't expect to make it past the second round, his frills flaring up protectively around his head. Queen speaks for a good five minutes about how people seemed to have crazily unrealistic expectations from her, how she was able to display a hidden talent of hers and become a little more human in the eyes of the public.

And then there's her. When Bushranger's asked how she feels about winning, she merely shrugs. "Good enough. I mean, I was gonna steal the trophy if I didn't get it, so..."

_ "We understand that you're under temporary immunity as part of your contractual agreement, but will you return to your life of crime after the show?" _

She pauses - she's honestly never really thought of it. She's always assumed she's going to be robbing banks again. But Cessa's right. This could be a new chance? "...I don't know," Bushy admits, drumming her fingers on the trophy's base. "I, uh, guess we'll see?"

_ Eloquent as always. _

_ "Is there anything about your Masked Singer experience you would change? This goes to everyone." _

Before anyone else can answer, the criminal leans forward. "I wouldn't have signed up," she deadpans - oh, it's so easy to lie. And so effective, too; the news cunts are eating it up and the producers are probably still crying backstage.

"Well, can't beat that," Frilly grins. "I wouldn't have changed a thing, though." The other two panelists agree with that sentiment, Wizard mentioning a getting-further spell off-handedly.

A particularly cunty reporter looks up from her notepad. _"Given the unusual circumstances of this show, namely how high-profile two of the finalists were and the incident a few weeks back, many have been speculating as to the nature of the relationship between the Queen and madam Bushranger. Can I ask for a reassurance that nothing out of the ordinary is happening?"_

Yeah, she knew from the way that bitch looked at her that The Question was coming. Could have made it _sound_ a whole lot less bitchy, though - it's tempting to fire a few rounds into the reporter's brain. She sighs, glancing over to Cessa, then -

A hand finds its way into her own under the table and is then yanked up to land atop it. The monarch closes her eyes, sliding her chair over and leaning onto Bushy's shoulder.

Oh.

Alright.

The room waits in stunned silence for a second, as if to verify that yes, this _was_ happening. Then, _holy shit_ does absolute _chaos_ erupt. Questions, demands, pleas, all coming from all over the place, notes being taken, the word treason -

"Reassured yet?" Bushranger mumbles, grinning like a madwoman under her helmet at the new spark of fury that ignites in the cunts in the front rows. She can feel how Queen's pressing up, cold against her, the decision already somewhat regretted, but it's happened and so they'd just have to ride the train.

"One at a time," Frilly intones into his mic, rolling his eyes. The news never goes one at a time unless you tell them to, though. It takes a good three minutes of producer yelling for everyone to simmer down enough to resume a half-decent order.

_ "So this is real?" _

"I ask myself that every day," Bushy laughs. She spots her girlfriend smiling as a reflection in the trophy and asks herself again.

"Of course it is," the royal shrugs, not deigning to open her eyes. "If there's one thing you need to know about her, it's that she's nothing you expect."

She could say the same. And maybe that's the beauty in it - maybe there's sunshine and rainbows and a happy ending after all.

Bushy wouldn't mind it one bit, not if Cessa's there with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for, well, reading! I hope you enjoyed this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'd love to hear your thoughts - this is my first time writing some things, so if there's something I got wrong, feel free to let me know. And feel free to drop a kudos if you liked it! You can catch me on Tumblr at cataclysmofthemasses.tumblr.com, if you're interested in that.
> 
> ...
> 
> What's this?
> 
> Is it... a special Piquet playlist? The same one Cata used when she was working on the fic?
> 
> I think it is!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOTu2GsBAcOb5g_ma0HAmpwTdOU7-jfBn


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